Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/45

Rh marks him as a man of unusual piety, as well as of stout heart.

The trip abroad must necessarily have been for business purposes, whether for books or in relation to his "Coffee-house." The coffee-clubs took the place of the "saloons" of another epoch when the politician or propagandist discovered there a receptivity for his ideas that he would not have found in less social and convivial places.

It is more likely that his trip had to do with the paper which he was to issue. Without further intimation, so far as any of the contemporary records show, without fanfare or preliminary advertising, Publick Occurances appeared on September 25, 1690—the first newspaper to be printed on this continent—published from Harris" London Coffee House," the printing being done for him by Richard Pierce.

The first issue was printed on three pages of a folded sheet, leaving the last page blank, there being two columns to a page, each page being about eleven by seven inches.

Harris begins by declaring that his purpose is to furnish the country once a month with an account of "such considerable things as have arrived unto our notice," a promise calculated to arouse the interest of the dwellers in the wilderness, who must have been hungry for news of their fellow-men. He promises that he will take pains to collect his news and will "particularly make himself beholden to such persons in Boston whom he knows to have been for their own use the diligent observers of such matters."

Thirdly he states, "that something may be done toward curing, or at least the charming, of that spirit of lying which prevails among us; Wherefore, nothing shall