at least half the impertinences of ordinary newspapers." In the present competitive age, the Courant's self-denying principle is, alas, no longer observed, and some daily papers give their readers more matter in a day than the Courant did in a year. Though this paper has not survived till the present time, there are twelve newspapers still published in different parts of the country which saw the light in the first twenty years of the eighteenth century and bear witness to the journalistic activity of the period.[1] But a new enemy to the growth of the Press made its appearance early in this .century, which it was found more difficult to defeat than the censorship. This was the stamp duty, first imposed on newspapers in 1712, and not finally abolished till the middle of the present century.
The stamp duties of various kinds, which have played so important a part in Imperial finances since the Revolution, appear to have been borrowed from the Dutch, and were, and are still, a favorite method of Chancellors of the Exchequer for raising revenue. It is not surprising that the financial authorities of the day, casting about for means of raising money, should have directed their attention to the newspapers which were becoming a flourishing institution in the land. The first proposal for a newspaper stamp duty was made in the sixth and last Parliament summoned by William III., a year before his death," namely in 1701. Whole sheets, it was suggested, should
- ↑ The editor of May's "British and Irish Press Guide," as the result of careful research into the history of existing newspapers, places the following at the beginning of the seventeenth century, trustworthy facts being forthcoming in support of the years assigned for the dates of commencement:—1705, Dublin Gazette; 1709, Worcester Postman (Berrow's Worcester Journal); 1710, Nottingham Weekly Courant (Nottinghamshire Weekly Express); 1711, Newcastle Courant; 1712-3, Stamford Mercury; 1713, Bristol Postman (Bristol Times and Mirror); 1713, British Chronicle (Hereford Journal); 1714, Norwich Mercury; 1717, Kentish Post (Kentish Gazette); 1718, Leeds Mercury; 1720, Ipswich Journal; 1720, Northampton Mercury.
