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OOKING back over the last two centuries and a half of this country's history, there are few features in our national progress which can be regarded with more unmixed satisfaction than the growth of the Press, on whose unshackled energies Hallam tells us we must rely for almost the only effectual stimulus to public spirit. In spite of restrictions of the most vexatious and crushing character, the Newspaper Press of England, taken as a whole, has ever been honorably conspicuous in its efforts to stimulate "the spirit of regard to liberty and the public good." Even though too often used as a mere weapon of partizan warfare, and too frequently marked by the imperfections and prejudices of its conductors, yet the important fact remains that much of the religious, moral, political, fiscal, and social reform of our country has become, through the Press, not merely known to the great mass of Englishmen, but actively propagated, and, by the force of public opinion thus stimulated, brought to a successful issue. In attempting to describe in a compendious fashion the origin and growth of an institution so impor-