INTRODUCTION
"Subordinate persons were employed to note down the events of the day and news of the city for the absent men of quality; and Caesar as early as his first consulship took fitting measures for the immediate publication of an extract of the transactions of the senate. From the private journals of those Roman penny-a-liners and these official current reports there arose a sort of news-sheet for the capital (acta diurna), in which the résumé of the business discussed before the people and in the senate, and births, deaths, and such like were recorded. This became a not unimportant source for history, but remained without proper political as without literary significance."—Theodore Mommsen.
"Interprète fidèle des temps qu'il a traversé, le journal en reproduit la physionomie exacte; il est pour le moral des peuples ce que l'invention de Daguerre est pour les formes matérielles. C'est seulement en interrogeant ces mille échos de l'opinion publique, ces témoins imperturbables des événements, en les confrontant et les contrôlant les uns par les autres, qu'on peut arriver à la vérité."—E. Hatin.
Historians were some years ago surprised, even perplexed, by the appearance of the first volume of an unheralded history deal ing with America . The surprise was not altogether due to its unusual title, for this was evidently an adaptation of that of a well-known English work, nor was it explained by the fact that the author was not known to be one of the guild,—Grote had been a banker, Hodgkin a merchant, and Stubbs a clergyman, and a history written by an instructor in civil engineering was conceivable. The surprise was in large measure to be ascribed to the material on which the work was apparently based,—an examination of the foot-notes showed references, not to the conventional authorities, but to newspapers, pamphlets, dodgers, and every variety of ephemeral material. That old newspapers were interesting reading had always been appreciated, but no historian had hitherto ventured to use them as a main authority for his work . Was it possible that the stone which the builders refused had become the head stone of the corner?
