Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/123

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the last number,” 50 an interesting illustration that the impulse to “ stop my paper ” is not of to -day. The consideration of the personality of a newspaper also in cludes the question as to how far the paper as a whole is normal and how far it must be deemed eccentric or abnormal. A long list

could be made of newspapers like " the lonesomest newspaper in America ,” - published thirty -five miles from the nearest railroad station ; the smallest daily newspaper in America ; a freak news paper printed with ink containing phosphorus so that the paper could be read in the dark ; a paper printed with non -poisonous ink

on thin sheets of dough which could be eaten ;papers published by the patients of hospitals for the insane; newspapers in the extreme north that are published once a year; newspapers for theatre

goers that go to press at 10: 30 P . M .; the " continuous-per formance" newspaper published " at all hours of the day and night that conditions and the development of newsmay warrant;" the world whose language has been developed to a point where its own characters can be used ;" papers printed on yellow silk as was the oldest Chinese newspaper, - all these are but a few of the variants from the conventional that have been noted .51 The his

torian may have a passing interest in these peculiar issues , re cording as they do the existence of peculiarities in the human mind that find expression through these channels, but he must regard them only as curiosities having a psychological rather than an historical value.

Anonymity as an element in thepersonality of the press usually centers around the question of the signed or the unsigned review , 50 Letters from and to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, I, 359. The number referred to contained an article on “ Don Cevallos on the Usurpation of Spain . "

61 One of themost interesting of these unusual papers is the first number of the Sitka Times, September 19 , 1868. It was written by hand , nearly all of it in red ink . Reduced in size, it is reproduced in The Pahasa pa Quar

terly (Rapid City, S. D .), April, 1916 . The London Sun printed in letters of gold an account of the coronation

of Queen Victoria in 1838 . The New York Independent printed a limited but sumptuous edition on white silk in honor of its twenty- first anniversary, December 2 , 1869. Pre sentation copies were sent to the crowned heads of Europe, and at least two of them have found their way back to