Page:Guatimala or the United Provinces of Central America in 1827-8.pdf/114

Rh walls of the printing-office since that period, is a problem it perhaps would be difficult to solve.

Its chief occupation is to reprint papers from Rome, to publish the letters and charges of the archbishop, with now and then a declamatory sermon; and to supply the good Catholics with little volumes of prayers and devotional exercises for peculiar times and seasons. Since the revolution, however, three others have been established, which find employment in publishing the newspapers. A number of these publications have at various times, seen the light; but with the greater part, it has been but to be born and die. At present they are three in number, and published weekly: one called the Gazette of the Government; another, the Gazette of the State; and the third, The Indicador. All these support the measures of the present administration; are equally dull and uninteresting, and have a very limited sale. No news makes its appearance in any of them until it has been generally known in the city for a month, excepting official government papers, which are exceedingly long and tedious; and with these their columns are mostly filled. As the presses obtain little other employment, they of course are not very profitable to their owners.

The last book published, was a volume of poetical fables, by a Dr. Goyena, who styles himself