It is a far cry from these days to the time when Juvenal's lady read the morning paper in Rome, but that brief reference to what the author! casually took for a very ordinary cepted fact, leads us to assume that! Rewspapers were known in that early civilization. There were of] course the "Acta Diurna': short an-houncements containing official news, intelligence of battles, " elections. games, fires, compiled by the actuarii fand exhibited in public places for} Eeneral information. These were copied by expensive slave scriveners and brought to their masters—who, when they had read them, circulated them to their friends.
But it was not until the discovery of printing from movable type by} Coster that the true newspaper can} bbe said to have come into existence. News letters it is true had already} come into being and in the days of Queen Elizabeth those whose interest in the happenings of the day were more vital than mere curiosity had] news writers in their pay. The Tess fortunate had to depend upon the! rumours current during the day and just as reliable as rumour is in this age.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.