Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/163



"ejected mud, filth, and venom," in the political campaigns and had "attacked and blackened the best characters the world ever boasted." Nevertheless, being the editor of a Federalist organ, Russell was forced, much against his will, to support De Witt Clinton of New York and to oppose James Madison. In proportion as the Federalists lost in influence, The Centinel now called The Columbian Centinel lost in subscription. To- ward the close of 1828 Russell retired from newspaper work and in 1840 The Centinel became a part of The Boston Daily Advertiser.

FIRST FEATURE PAPER

Before the close of the eighteenth century, American journal- ism had a "feature" paper, the departments of which attracted more attention than its "latest intelligence both foreign and do- mestick." This paper was started, not in one of the larger cities, but in the little country village of Walpole, New Hampshire. Its promoters were Isaiah Thomas, publisher of The Worcester Spy, and David Carlisle, a native of Walpole, and at one time an apprentice in the office of Thomas at Worcester, Massa- chusetts. Taking a printing-press and type which had seen good service on The Spy, Carlisle brought out in April, 1793, The New Hampshire Journal. In this sheet may be found the precursor of the modern newspaper "colyum" in a department furnished by Royal Tyler, whose humorous squibs were headed "From the Shop of Messrs. Colon and Spondee." No paragraphers of the nineteenth century ever surpassed Tyler in skillful allitera- tion, of which he was unusually fond. Tyler had a rival in Isaac Storey, a graduate of Harvard College of the Class of 1792, who signed his political effusions, "Peter Quince." Thomas Green Fessenden, upon his graduation from Dartmouth College, be- gan, under the signature of Simon Spunkey," a series of politi- cal lampoons which in Hudibrastic style satirized the French and the Republican politics. David Everett, also a graduate ot Dartmouth College, wrote a prose department of clever es- says, "Common Sense in Dishabille." These humorous essays were so popular that they were not only republished in many of the newspapers, but were afterwards collected a