632 



NEWSPAPERS. 



abiding, and thoroughly loyal. By treaty stip- 

 ulation they were assured of the same degree 

 of protection as citizens of the United States, 

 to which they were entitled as citizens of Mexi- 

 co. To subject them now to unnecessary sac- 

 rifices in the perfection of titles to homs to 

 which they already held perfect title as citi- 

 zens of Mexico, would certainly be inconsistent 

 with the treaty guarantees under which they 

 became citizens of the United States. In no 

 way yet devised can those treaty guarantees 

 and strict justice to those people in respect to 

 their land titles be so fully conformed to and 

 secured as by the adoption by Congress of the 

 plan embodied in the pending House bill. 



" A considerable portion of the lands held by 

 the native citizens is included in community 

 grants, lands originally taken up under a gen- 

 eral law of Spain, and occupied and held in 

 common by the grantees and their descend- 

 ants. These lands are becoming valuable by 

 the general development of the country, and 

 the temptations and opportunities for the pro- 

 curement of undivided interests therein by de- 

 signing and unscrupulous persons are becoming 

 very great, and daily increasing, to the loss and 

 wrong of unsuspecting and credulous occupant 

 members of the community. I deem it im- 

 portant for the protection of these people that 

 the tribunal to be provided for the investiga- 

 tion and adjustment of claims to these grants 

 shall be authorized also to allot in severalty 

 to each actual occupant of all community grants 

 his proportion, in quantity and value. 



u A serious and threatening evil to the wel- 

 fare of the Territory exists in the presence of 

 great landed estates that have been developed 

 in the larger Spanish grants that have been 

 confirmed to individual claimants by Congress 

 under former Administrations. Some of these 

 grants are of enormous extent, ranging from 

 hundreds of thousands to near two millions 

 of acres. Their owners, some of them aliens, 

 persist in holding these vast bodies of land 

 intact, refusing to subdivide or sell any portion 

 on any terms, with the avowed intention of 

 establishing thereon a system of tenantry, an- 

 tagonistic to and subversive of American in- 

 dustrial economy, Amerian society, and Ameri- 

 can government. This purpose of the holders 

 of these estates, unless thwarted by prompt 

 action, can not but breed mischief, morally, 

 industrially, and politically.' 1 



The House bill referred to provides for a 

 commission to adjudicate titles to Spanish and 

 Mexican grants. 



NEWSPAPERS. The earliest newspaper in 

 America was one begun in Boston in 1690, en- 

 titled " Publick Occurrences." The authori- 

 ties objected to it, and a second number was 

 never issued. The first permanent one was 

 the Boston " News-Letter," founded in 1704, 

 and continuing until 1775. Philadelphia pub- 

 lished a journal in 1719, and New York one in 

 1725. From that time until the beginning of 

 the Revolution the number increased slowly. 



The principal towns were not large enough to 

 do more than allow them to exist, and it was 

 impossible to send their issues far away from 

 home, as the roads were bad and all methods of 

 communication were infrequent. At the out- 

 break of the war with England in 1775 there 

 were 39 journals of all kinds, none of them 

 taking the entire time of the editor, who was 

 always a printer and frequently a bookseller^ 

 Several of these periodicals ceased while the 

 conflict was going on ; but, after it ended, 

 numbers sprang up, many being away from 

 the seaboard. Kentucky had one in 1787, and 

 Ohio another in 1793; but no considerable 

 progress could be made in their conduct until 

 the post-roads and other highways were great- 

 ly improved, and until mechanical inventions 

 had been made that would enable a large num- 

 ber of copies to be printed in a short time. As 

 it happened, these improvements came nearly 

 together. Both railroads and steam-presses 

 went into operation in 1830, although known 

 here for a year or two before. Until that time 

 it was impossible for a newspaper to print on 

 a single press more than three thousand copies 

 in a day, even when labor was carried on for 

 the entire twenty-four hours. The greatest 

 speed was two hundred and fifty copies an 

 hour on one side, this requiring two expert 

 workmen. The printer's craft had not ad- 

 vanced between the years 1700 and 1800, and 

 at the latter date he was obliged to purchase 

 everything except paper in Great Britain. Ink 

 was not made here ; there was only one small 

 type-foundry in the country ; presses were im- 

 ported, and so was everything else necessary 

 for carrying on the art properly. But a change 

 began in 1796, when Binney and Ronaldson 

 opened a type-foundry in Philadelphia. Short- 

 ly afterward Ramage began making wooden 

 presses better than those brought from abroad, 

 and in 1805 ink was manufactured. In 1817 

 and 1818 iron presses were made, allowing 

 sheets of double the former size to be printed. 

 In 1827 or 1828 composition-rollers were 

 brought into use, and about a year later power- 

 presses. These were at first propelled by 

 horses or mules, steam being applied in 1835 

 or 1836. From that time to this there has 

 been a continual succession of improvements, 

 some of very great value, each enabling the 

 press to reach a higher point. It has been 

 obliged to follow these changes, and its step 

 could be no more rapid than theirs. To print 

 as many copies as our largest Sunday paper 

 now issues in four or five hours, would in 1809 

 have required the labor of a hand-press, as 

 newspapers were then printed, ten hours a 

 day for seven years and a half. The largest 

 office in the city then had nine hand-presses. 

 If it had worked night and day, with relays of 

 pressmen, it would have taken nineteen weeks. 

 To do it in the time that the "World" ac- 

 complishes its feat would have required 5,600 

 presses and 11,200 pressmen four times as 

 many presses and pressmen as there were in 



