sheets were distributed through semi-annual fairs, and later through stage coaches. Since the time of issuing and the fre
quency of issue depended on the opportunities for distribution , monthly periodicals were unknown and the semi-annual leaped at a bound to the weekly .22 It was long, however , before there
was any development of a newspaper in the present usage of the word , and its place was supplied by other media of communica tion . The genesis of the newspaper in England, as known to -day,
has been traced to the letters written in time of war to friends
and relatives at home.23 “ Until the year 1641," says J. B . Wil liams, " the corantos were nothing more than a running history of the Thirty Years ' War, then in progress on the Continent.” These letters were presumably concerned primarily with personal matters , but their narrations were naturally supplemented by accounts of events of the day and by descriptions of the country
where they were written . Themodern newspaper first came into existence when progress in the technique of printing made pos
sible the multiplication of copies of these letters, and improve ment in means of communication facilitated their distribution . It was long, however, before the printed newspaper supplanted the written news-letter, owing to the stringent regulations en forced by the Government against all printed periodicals.24
It was Théophraste Renaudot, a physician, who, in 1631, » Carl Bücher, “ The Genesis of Journalism ,” Industrial Evolution , pp. 215 - 243 . Chapter VI gives a brief but excellent historical sketch of the development of the newspaper on the continent.
A contemporary account written in Latin of the Russian invasion of published in facsimile in London , in 1874 , and probably illustrates fairly well the early continental news-sheet .
23 It is important to note that the attribution of the origin of newspapers in England to the corantos has not passed unchallenged . Recent investi gators have raised the question whether the Diurnall Occurrences — " the culmination in the development of news-letters " - may not be “ almost as
significant in the origin of English journalism as the corantoes. May one
possibly say that the English newspaper has one of its origins in the custom, in use as early as 1628 , of sending out résumés of parliamentary news in
1629, p . liv.
24 These facts apply specially to England and they have been taken from J. B . Williams, History of English Journalism to the Foundation of the Gazette, chap . I. Similar conditions apparently were found in other coun
