165 



publication of stories, tales, and other entertaining articles. 



Mrs. Crouch exhibited sjsirit and enterprize, but was unable 

 to succeed with the paper, which lasted only nine months, clos- 

 ing Oct. 11 of the same year. She assigned as reasons for the 

 stoppage, "the want of sufficient assistance, and the impossibility 

 of obtaining house room for herself and family to reside near 

 her business." Her printing office was at the corner of Derby 

 and Hardy sts. Mrs. Couch afterwards removed to Providence, 

 her native place. 



5. The Salem Gazette. In just a week after the close 

 of Mrs. Crouch's paper, Smnuel Hall again entered upon a 

 career as publisher in Salem. He had returned from Boston, 

 and probably bought Mrs. Crouch's materials. He commenced 

 a new paper entitled " The Salem Gazette," the first number 

 of which was dated Oct. 18, 1781. It was of the size and 

 general character of his previous paper. He continued the pub- 

 lication of this series of Gazettes for a little more than four 

 years, enlarging the sheet in the third volume, and bringing it 

 to a close in this town, Nov. 22, 1785. At that time he removed 

 the paper to Boston. 



In finally terminating his connection with Salem, Mr. Hall 

 stated that he did so only under the pressure of stern necessity. 

 His business had been materially injured by a Tax upon Ad- 

 vertisements, which had been imposed by the Legislature the 

 previous summer. This tax, in conjunction with the decline of 

 trade, had operated so disastrously as to deprive him of nearly 

 three-quarters of the income of his paper from that source, and 

 on this account he accepted the advice of friends, who re- 

 commended his removal to Boston. The contracted circulation 

 of the paper, and the great expense attending its publication in 

 Salem, he said, rendered a burdensome tax upon his advertising 

 columns insupportable. The expense of procuring intelligence 

 from Boston alone, by special messenger, was so great, that to 

 defray it he would gladly have given more than half the profits 

 of all the newspapers circulated in this town. 



The tax on advertisements, of which Mr. Hall complained so 

 bitterly, was voted by the legislature, July 2, 1785, and had 

 elicited an outcry of indignation from nearly all the papers in 

 the states. It was imposed to aid in liquidating the war debt 

 incurred during the Revolution. It required the payment of 

 six pence on each advertisement of 12 lines or less, and one 

 shilling on those of 20 or less, and so on in proportion. This 

 act was denounced in severe terms as an infringement of the 



