N E W 
N E W 
Is generally confulted firft; and what can equal the glad- 
fome inquifitivenefs that appears in the eye, when it firft 
rolls gently over the columns of a frelh news-paper ! Such 
is the variety of this department, and fuch the attachment 
ofeverymanto his favourite purfuit, that a tolerable guefs 
may be formed of what a man is, by attending to what he 
firft reads in a paper. The fturdy politician, indeed, is a 
general reader. He can find out a political allufion in 
every paragraph. If a lady of quality makes a falfe ftep, 
lie can defcant on the privileged orders 5 and, if the price 
of bread has rifen, he can cenfure parliament for the in- 
fufficiency of the corn-laws. But others confine them- 
felves to their favourite articles: the court-news delights 
the man of fafhion, becaufe he knows the parties ; the ladies 
are anxious for marriages and births, becaufe they may 
know the parties; the young and gay are for the faftiion- 
able tattle of marriages, divorces, duels, new dreffes, elope¬ 
ments, and other articles of the amufing kind 5 while the 
grave citizen calls a folemn glance at the price of flocks, 
willies he had bought in, or hopes he may foon be able to 
fell out. And there are a pretty numerous clafs to wdiom 
robberies, burglaries, murders, and picking of pockets, 
afford a confiderable gratification in the detail. 
“ A news-paper being thus perufed, by every man ac¬ 
cording to his tafte, the day is begun with a proper fund 
for converfation. The wheels are again fet a-going, and 
the dulleft has fomething to fay, or fome remark to make 
on what he has read. If news-papers, then, are underva¬ 
lued, it is becaufe they are common 5 that is, they are 
expedited as conftantly as the returns of day and night. 
To appreciate their true value, therefore, we have only 
to fuppofe that they were totally to be difcontinued for a 
month, or even a week. I turn with horror from the 
frightful idea ! I deprecate fuch a Ihock to the circulation 
of table-talk. It would operate more unfavourably than 
the gloom of November is faid by foreigners to operate 
on the nerves of Englilhmen ; and, after fuch a fufpenfe 
of news, I am afraid the papers would contain nothing 
but accounts of the fudden deaths which had happened 
in the interval, with the deliberate opinions of the coro¬ 
ner’s jury, Died for want of intelligence!” 
Dr. Franklin’s playful remarks on the political party- 
abufe that is to be conftantly found in news-papers, 
mull not be omitted. They are extradited from his “ Pri¬ 
vate Correfpondence,” lately publifned. “ The incon- 
fiftency that ftrikes me the moll is that between the name 
of your city, Philadelphia, (brotherly love,) and the fpirit 
of rancour, malice, and hatred, that breathes in the news¬ 
papers ! For I learn from thofe papers, that your Hate is 
divided into parties; that each party afcribes all the pub¬ 
lic operations of the other to vicious motives ; that they 
do not even fufpeCt one another of the fmallell degree of 
honefty; that the antifederalifts are fuch, merely from the 
fear of lofing power, places, or emoluments, which they 
have in poffelfion or in expedilation ; that the federalifts 
are a fet of confpirators, who aim at eftablilhing a tyranny 
over the perfons and property of their countrymen, and 
who live in fplendour on the plunder of the people. I 
learn too that your juftices of the peace, though chofen by 
their neighbours, make a villanous trade of their office, and 
promote difcord to augment fees and fleece their eleClors ; 
and that this would not be mended by placing the choice in 
the executive council, who with interefted or party view's 
are continually making as improper appointments: wit- 
nefs a petty fiddler, fycophant, and fcoundrel, appointed 
judge of the admiralty; an old woman and fomenter ofje- 
dition, to be another of the judges ; and a Jeffries, chief- 
juftice, See. Sec. with harpies, the comptroller and naval 
officers, to prey upon the merchants, and deprive them of 
their property by force of arms, Sec. I am informed alfo 
by thefe papers, that your general affembly, though the 
amnual choice of the people, ftiows no regard to their 
rights; but from finifter views or ignorance makes laws in 
direCl violation of the conftitution, to diveft the inhabi¬ 
tants of their property and give it to ftrangers and intru- 
Vot.XVII. No. 1159. 
29 
ders ; and that the council, either fearing the refentment 
of their conftituents, or plotting to enflave them, had 
projected to difarm them, and given orders for that pur- 
pofe 5 and finally, that your prefident, the unanimous 
joint choice of the council and affembly, is an old rogiue, 
who gave his affent to the federal conftitution merely to 
avoid refunding money he had purloined from the United 
States. There is indeed a good deal of manifeft incon- 
fiftency in all this ; and yet a ftranger, feeing it in your 
own prints, though he does not believe it all, may proba¬ 
bly believe enough of it to conclude that Pennfylvania is 
peopled by a fet of the moll unprincipled, wicked, rafcally, 
and quarreifome, fcoundrels upon the face of the globe. 
I have fometimes indeed fufpecled, that thofe papers are 
the manufacture of foreign enemies among you, who 
write with the view of difgracing your country, and 
making you- appear contemptible and deteftable all the 
world over; but, then I wonder at the indiferetion of 
your printers in publifliing fuch writings ! There is how¬ 
ever one of your inconfillencies that confoles me a little, 
which is, that, though living you give one another the 
charafters of devils, dead you are all angels ! It is de¬ 
lightful when any of you die, to read what good hufbands, 
good fathers, good friends, good citizens, and good Chrif- 
tians, you were, concluding with a ferap of poetry that 
places you, with certainty, every one in heaven. So 
that I think Pennfylvania a good country to die in, though 
a very bad one to live in.” 
The expenfes of conducting a daily news-paper in 
London are great; but the profits are great alfo. A few 
years ago, during the heat of the war, the Times was faid 
to be worth zo,oool. a-year to the proprietors. Some of 
the expenfes, befides paper, printing, and llamps, were— 
Twelve guineas a-week to the writer of the leaded leader, 
as the printers call it; that is, the leading article direCtly 
under the London head, and in which the lines are fet 
farther apart, and more diftinCl, than in the advertife- 
ments and paragraphs of lefs confequence—feven guineas 
a-week to the theatrical reporter—the fame fum, in term- 
time, to the law-reporter—a vail expenfe, in war-time, to 
the clerks of the poft-office, and otherperfons, for foreign 
intelligence. 
“ A large Britifh news-paper,” obferves a modern writer, 
“ its pages clofely filled with commercial wants and lup- 
plies, with, the arrangements of private convenience, the 
folicitations of diftrefs, the acts of public focieties, the 
declarations of popular meetings, the marriages and 
deaths, and accidents and offences, that happen in the 
community; the jokes of the day that are current, the 
arrival and departure of our fleets, the debates of our 
houfes of parliament, the announcement of our numerous 
literary works, and ample intelligence from the four 
quarters of the globe ; is perhaps the fined thing we 
have to (how, as a proof of our national greatnefs, and 
the moll truft-worthy means of making it durable. What 
an immenfe mafs of interefts, and connecting communi¬ 
cation, is here apparently knitting thellruClure of our fo- 
ciety together, and by its publication diffufing through¬ 
out the whole a fpirit of general fympathy, as an animat¬ 
ing mind to the well-compaCted union of a commonwealth 
of rights and poffeffions 1” 
NEW'S-SHELF, a fhoal on the north-weft coaft of 
Riou’s Iftand, in the Pacific Ocean. Lat. 8. 50. S. Ion. 
zao. 4.7. E. 
NEW'S-WRITER, f. A writer of news; a writer of 
politics in a news-paper.—Their papers, filled with a dif¬ 
ferent party-fpirit, divide the people into different fenti- 
ments, who generally confider rather the principles than 
the truth of the news-writer. Addifon. 
NEW'SHAM, a village in the county of Durham, on 
the Tees, five miles from Darlington, Barnard’s Callle, 
and Richmond. This being the ufual ford over the river 
from the fouth, the bifliop of Durham is generally met 
here, at his firft coming to the fee; when the Lord of 
Stockbourn, juft below it, being at the head of the coun- 
I try 
