Politics and finance have always been the two most important topics in Newspaperdom. There was no systematic collection or distribution of news until men had a political interest in the state, or were involved in financial transactions covering a fairly wide area of trade and transportation. In most countries both conditions were present before regular trade in news arose. The walled city required no newspaper: the tower watchman and the king's herald did the reporting. When, however, officials left the city to govern undefended towns, there must be devised some new method of publishing the official proclamations and of giving the gossip of the capital. When commercial houses began to import and export goods, maritime news had a cash value and might be sold.
ROMAN NEWS-LETTERS
By way of illustration, the Republic of Rome may be mentioned. As early as 449 B.C. official protocols of the transaction of the Senate were kept and deposited in the Temple of Ceres, in charge of the police commissioners (oediles). It was permissible to take notes or to have them taken and then to communicate these memoranda to others. When sent to the provincial governors, or tax-farmers, these notes, with their additions of local gossip, became news-letters. Their writers, in the early days of the Republic, were intelligent slaves: later, bonded freemen took up the work and sold their letters to any one who would pay the price. Signs of "courtesy to the press" began to appear about this time, for these news-writers could, upon the presentation of proper credentials, obtain admission to the meetings of the Senate. Wealthy Romans in the provinces continued to supplement these regular news-letters by special reports from their own correspondents, just as the modern newspaper may, in addition to the service of the Associated Press, have its own correspondents at strategic points to send in special items—or "stories" as they are called in the language of the newspaper office.
Antony, for example, was one of these men who kept in touch with the political situation and the financial condition in Rome by means of such news-epistles. In a way, he owned his own newspaper of a single edition, for the man who wrote these news-
