Transactions OF THE BANFFSHIRE FIELD CLUB. THE STRATHMARTINE BanffshireTRUST Field Club The support of The Strathmartine Trust toward this publication is gratefully acknowledged. www.banffshirefieldclub.org.uk 21 THURSDAY, March 26, 1896. MEETING AT BANFF. A MEETING of the members of the Banffshire Field Clnb was held in the Reading Room of the Town and County Club on Thursday evening—Ex-Provost Williamson presiding. A paper was read by Dr Cramond on NEWSPAPERS—OLD AND NEW, which was as follows :— Standing as we now do among the closing years of another century, in many respects the most remarkable the world has ever seen, we cannot resist at times being carried away in fancy to reflect on all the wonderful events and changes that have occurred during the last hundred years. "What strikes us most as we survey the long drawn vista? We see far off glorious deeds by land and sea—Trafalgar and Waterloo, with many another famous name—but looking a little below the surface we see at the same time hardship, oppression, poverty, and all the ills that war ever brings in its train to the mass of the common people. Coming onward we see a reaction Banffshiresetting in, the people assertin gField themselves, and Club paving the way for comfort, independence, and higher social position. After a time come the dash of the railway train, the throb of the steam engine, the click of the electric telegraph, and the many wonderful inventions it has been the fortune of our age to see begun or perfected. These and such like 22 impress us most readily, but forces as powerful can be recognised by him who looks aright. Some of these are like the air around us and on all sides, and yet we practically see them not. They come to us as a matter of course, and are so familiar we scarcely ever think of them, except when we are deprived of them. Such are newspapers. It is from them, in large measure, we derive our knowledge and opinions of men and things all over the world. They instruct us and amuse us, and even do the most of our think- ing for us, and the curious thing is we imagine all the while we are independent of them, and consider ourselves competent to criticise and remark on all their weak points, while every day of our lives we are swayed by them as by a potent unseen force, and our opinions and most cherished beliefs are formed, moulded, or changed at their bidding. 'Four hostile newspapers, said Napoleon, 'are more to be dreaded than 100,000 bayonets.' 'Is not every able editor,' says Carlyle, ' a ruler of the world, being a persuader of it?'" In the opinion of Wendell Phillipps, ' not one man in ten reads books. The newspaper is parent, school, college, pulpit, theatre, example, counseller, all iu one. Every drop of our blood is coloured by it. Let me make,'says he, 'the newspapers, and I care not who makes the religion or the laws.' So much have they become a necessity of our modern social life that a famous American expiesses it as his opinion that he would rather live in a country with newspapers and without Government than in a country with a Government but without newspapers. Jack- son, in his ' History of the Pictorial Press,' says ' Newspapers have become almost as neces- sary to our daily life as bread itself.' An amusing proof to show how indispensable they are to our existence is furnished bv almost every speaker of eminence who proposes the toast of ' The News- paper Press.' As the bashful young man who pro- poses 'The Ladies' always begins his speech by remarking that we could not do without them, so the speakers at great London banquets in honour of Banffshirethe Newspaper Press Fun dField almost invariabl y Clubcom- mence their orations by the sage remark that a newspaper is now as indispensable to one as his breakfast. For example, Mr Balfour, M.P., said ho was 'convinced there were many persons in the country who would rather go without their daily . bread than their daily newspaper.' Again, Mr 23 Chamberlain, M.P., on a similar occasion, said were he doomed to be shut up in gaol it was not the diet he would object to, but the less of the intellectual stimulant and the daily mental nutriment provided by the daily press. I had long the pleasure of the acquaintance of a worthy clergyman of the Church of Scotland. A vague rumour at times went abroad regarding him that in his early youth he had been known to read some books, but certain it is that during the greater part of his life he never partook of any intellectual food except what he found in the columns of the ' Scotsman,' and yet he lived to enjoy a green old age. The Early History of Newspapers. China claims the honour of having published an official Gazette centuries before Rome was built, and that it issued the first printed newspaper in the year 382 A.D The tenth century is also sometimes given as the date of the appearance of the latter, but neither date is reliable. The earliest resemblance to a newspaper in the history of the world is the 'Acta Diurna' or 'Daily News' as we should now call it which even before the Christian era was posted publicly in the city of Rome, and was sent to the generals in all parts of the Roman world to give, account of the progress of the Roman arms. These ' Acta Diurna' were, however, published at irregular intervals, but resembled the modern newspaper inasmuch as they supplied information on war, domestic events as trials, punishments, deaths, prodigies, &c. Here is a specimen which is said to be genuine. On the 3rd of the Kalends of April it rained stones on Mt. Aventine, again on the 4th of the Kalends of April 585 A. U. C. ' it thundered and an oak was struck with lightning on Mt. Palatine. That is the style of paragraph that fetches best even at the present day. We read no more of newspapers from the days of the Acta Diurna all through the Dark Ages, which were so called, I presume, as they wanted the light Banffshireof newspaper enterprise, No tField till about 1539 di d aClub sort of newspaper appear in Venice. It was only in MS., and appeared once a month. The payment of a small sum called a gazetta entitled one to a reading of it, and thus was originated the word Gazette. It was not long before that time that the word news itself came into existence. Some genius 24 thought he had discovered the derivation of the word in the initial letters of the four points of the compass—'N.E.W.S.'—a very pretty idea, but he forgot that the early spelling of the word was newes. The derivation is as original as that which takes the word cabal from the initials of the surnames— Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. Were I to ask this audience, or for that matter al- most any audience, ' What was the first English news- paper?' I know what answer many would give— ' The English Mercurie.' Some may have seen the original in the British Museum, and in fact I have an exact facsimile of it here for your inspection. Others, deeper read, would inform us that it was issued by Lord Burleigh, the Prime Minister of Queen Elizabeth, to transmit intelligence to various parts of the country regarding the movements of the Spanish Armada. That is very probably what Lord Burleigh would have done had he lived half-a- century later, but nothing is more certain than that he did nothing of the sort, and the truth is, the ' English Mercurie' never existed. It will be a long time before the reading public is disabused of the idea of newspapers having originated with the Spanish Armada, for even the Encyclopaedia Britannica and Disraeli's 'Curiosities of Literature' lent their authority to the fiction. Geo. Chalmers, the antiquary, the author of ' Caledonia,' has the credit of originating this story which has spread over the whole world. He examined the copies in the British. Museum, and their authenticity was never suspected till Mr Thomas Watts, of the British Museum, proved from the character of the paper on which they were printed, and from the fact that they contained advertisements that they could not have appeared in 1588, but rather about 1766. The secret of their origin never leaked out. It is thought to have been the work—and a very clever bit of work it was—of the second Earl of Hardwicke. Up to the yeai 1830, but no longer, owing to Mr Watt's discouraging discovery England could boast, Banffshireand it boasted largely, of havinFieldg had the earlies Clubt regular newspaper in the world. To us who know these facts it is very amusing to find authors writing as follows on the subject—'To the wisdom of Elizabeth and the prudence of Burleigh mankind are indebted for the first printed newspaper. The epoch when the Spanish Armada approached the shores of 25 England in April 1588 is also the epoch of a genuine newspaper under the title of the "English Mercury," the earliest of these which is preserved is No. 50, and may be seen in Sloane MSS. No. 4106. It contains the usual articles of news like the London Gazette of the present day, an article from White- hall July 23, 1588.