'
To Butler belongs the credit of having been the first to introduce
street newsboys, with this difference, that his employes were of the
other sex, and were styled 'Mercurie women.'
Butler was a stanch royalist, and consequently suffered the vengeance of
the Parliamentary party. He fell into great poverty, and, according to
Anthony a Wood, died on board Prince Rupert's fleet in Kinsale harbor,
in 1649, just as a brighter day was beginning to dawn upon journalism.
The struggle between the Parliament and the king set the press free from
the multiplied restrictions by which it had been 'cabined, cribbed,
confined' and almost stifled in its cradle. The country became flooded
with publications of all kinds, of which, while many were trashy,
ridiculous, and extravagant, there still remained a considerable portion
which materially helped forward that mighty uprising of the people to
which England owes her freedom, her glory, and her might.
And here, having introduced to the reader the first real newspaper, and
the great ancestor of all after editors, and having attended the press
through its obscure infancy and perilous childhood, we must pause,
reserving for consideration in a future article the fair promise of its
youth and the development of its still more glorious manhood.
THE CONSCRIPTION ACT OF MARCH 3D.
Few subjects are more difficult of legislation than that of the military
service of a nation.
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