Ve 
18 
years the paper has been published; the numbering the of 
separate issues is continuous from year to year, and indicates 
how many times the paper has been published, counting from 
the first number ever issued. It would be the duty of some 
person in every newspaper office to alter these figures ; the first set 
he should only touch once a year, and the other he should care- 
fully advance one for each publication. Bearing this in mind 
we shall be able to understand what happened. 1t appears that 
the paper had a very careless printer, who made several mistakes 
in altering the number. The volume for 1783 was properly Vol. 
24, but he continued this marking through 1784, 1785 and 1786. 
The number for January 4th, 1787 he marked Vol. 25, and then he 
found out part of his error, and marked that of January 11th and 
the rest of the year Vol. 26, still leaving himself one in arrear. 
In 1794 he twice altered the number of the volume instead of 
the number of the paper.* Again in 1795 he once made the 
same mistake,t and once more in 1798.{ These errors have 
never been corrected, and so the net result of the series of 
them is that the numbers of the volumes are three ahead of 
what they ought to he, and the consequence is that the year of 
establishment is wrongly put back to the same extent, from 1760 
to 1757. 
The next paper I have to mention is “The Bath Courant, 
printed and published by W. Gye and J. Salmon, at their 
* Thus the papers for the undermentioned dates are marked as follows :— 
Thursday, Aug. 7th, 1794, Vol. 33, No. 1714.” 
5 Pies ee lsty nee Ao gpa kl a tee 
” 9 21st, ”? ” 34, ” 1715. 
A; Pa detilitis a aes se LALO, 
Ry Sept. 24th, ,, 3, 39, 5, 1716, 
+ Thus the papers for the undermentioned dates are marked as follows :— 
Thursday, June 18th, 1795, Vol. 36, No. 1757. 
55 99) OUy aes; sua BD). og A 
| dudy-Qnd,°,, ,, 3%, > 15 
+ Thus the papers for the undermentioned dates are marked as follows :— 
Thursday, May 24th, 1798, Vol. 40, No, 1902. 
” ” 31st, ” ” 41, ” 1902. 
” June 7th, ,, 5, 41, ,, 1903 
