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vanced rapidly, and wonderful improvements have been made in 

 presses and other contrivances and materials employed in the 

 printing business. The art of wood-cuttings has been, we 

 might almost say, discovered, since the days when grotesque 

 devices, clumsily executed, figured so extensively at the head 

 of the little colonial journals. The rude wood-cuts which then 

 were supposed to adorn the public sheets are curious and amus- 

 ing exhibitions of the infancy of this delicate art, now so use- 

 ful in elegant and cheap illustrations. If any one is interested 

 to see the first difficult beginnings of the engraver's skill, he 

 may find many singular specimens in Thomas's History of 

 Printing — a valuable and rare work, now out of print. A fev/' 

 instances are also given in Mr. Buckingham's interesting 

 Reminiscences of the newspaper press, — to which work as 

 well as to the former one, we are indebted for some of the 

 statements in this account. A comparison of the uncouth 

 adornments of the papers of the Revolutionary period, w^ith 

 the exquisite wood engravings of Harper's Magazine, affords a 

 contrast nearly as great as that exhibited by the toilsome oper- 

 ations of an old hand-press beside the wonderful rapidity of the 

 lightning cylinder machines of the present day. 



The ancient newspapers were of small dimensions, printed 

 on large types, with clumsy presses, and upon coarse paper. 

 Such were the early prints of Salem. They were less various 

 in their contents than those of our time, and were made up 

 without much order or method. They Avere less full and 

 minute in respect to local and general information. But little 

 effort was made to gather the countless fragments of news 

 which now distend the columns of the public journal. In all 

 these respects there has been a great improvement in the public 

 prints. But in regard to honest industry and enterprise, public 

 spirit, boldness and freedom of expression, patriotic and noble 

 endeavor, we do not know that any superiority can be claimed 

 for the modern journals. In these particulars the publishers 

 of ante-Revolutionary times were generally worthy of the high- 

 est praise. 



After the reading of his communication, it was 

 Voted, That the thanks of the Essex Institute be presented 

 to Mr. Streeter, for his valuable and interesting series of 

 remarks, which so pleasantly occupied the evening's session. 



