STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685.

383

an announcement of a grand cock-figlit between two persons ™* p -

of honour, and an advertisement offering a reward for a-

strayed dog. The whole made up two pages of moderatesize. Whatever was communicated respecting matters of thehighest moment was communicated in the most meagre andformal style. Sometimes, indeed, when the government wasdisposed to gratify the public curiosity respecting an im-portant transaction, a broadside was put forth giving fullerdetails than could be found in the Gazette: but neither theGazette nor any supplementary broadside printed by autho-rity ever contained any intelligence which it did not suit thepurposes of the court to publish. The most important par-liamentary debates, the most important state trials, recordedin our history, were passed over in profound silence.* Inthe capital the coffee-houses supplied in some measure theplace of a journal. Thither the Londoners flocked, as theAthenians of old flocked to the market place, to hear whetherthere was any news. There men might learn how brutally aWhig had been treated the day before in Westminster Hall,what horrible accounts the letters from Edinburgh gave of thetorturing of Covenanters, how grossly the Navy Board hadcheated the crown in the victualling of the fleet, and whatgrave charges the Lord Privy Seal had brought against theTreasury in the matter of the hearth money. But people n®ws-who lived at a distance from the great theatre of political con-tention could be kept regularly informed of what was passingthere only by means of newsletters. To prepare such lettersbecame a calling in London, as it now is among the natives ofIndia. The newswriter rambled from coffee-room to coffee-room, collecting reports, squeezed himself into the SessionsHouse at the Old Bailey if there was an interesting trial, nay,

* For example, there is not a word in the Gazette about the im-portant parliamentary proceedings of November 1685, or about the trialand acquittal of the seven Bishops.