Newspapers were among the luxuries of the household, and their circulation was of a very limited character. When, for a town of the size of Royston, two or three copies did arrive by a London coach the subscribers were generally the principal innkeepers--the Red Lion, the Crown, and the Bull--and to these inns tradesmen and the leading inhabitants were wont to repair. The only alternative of getting a sight of the paper was that they could, on ordinary occasions, have it away with them at their own homes upon paying a penny an hour for its use. On special occasions when any great foreign event became known--for papers contained but little home news--the competition for the paper was an exciting event, the above arrangement was hardly elastic enough to meet requirements, and crowds gathered about in the inn yards on the arrival of a coach to learn some momentous piece of intelligence with more or less accuracy from post-boys and others, who in their turn had heard it from somebody else whose friend had been able to communicate it with the authority of having actually "seen it in the paper." The essence of the news required was generally victory or defeat in battle, or trials at Assizes, and could soon be told. The supply of papers was limited pretty much to the _Times_ and _Morning Chronicle_ from London, while the _Cambridge Chronicle_ was then the principal local newspaper. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer derived a revenue from the stamp required for each newspaper (as well as upon advertisements) the lending of a newspaper was looked upon in the light of smuggling, and an Act was passed providing that "any person who lends out a newspaper for hire is subject to a penalty of L10 for every offence." But I fear that with even this terrible inducement to buy your own paper, and the natural zeal for the spread of knowledge of a man like Henry Andrews, the astronomer, as agent for the sale of newspapers in our {78} town, very few copies were actually bought, and that most of the "news" which could not be obtained from the coaches was obtained by the Royston tradesmen in that illicit manner of lending and hiring, though forbidden by law! Work and wages, closely connected with the condition of home life, did not present a very cheerful picture. The labourer, and all engaged in husbandry, had much longer hours than now. An old writer on husbandry says, "the dairymaid should always be up in the morning between three or four o'clock." The young fellows living "in service" on the farm had never done till it was time to go to bed, and, having but very little if any money to spend and nowhere to go, a short interval for supper by the kitchen fire was about the only recreation they enjoyed to vary their lot.