In the type of the early books the various letter forms were not fixed as they are in modern books, but the type for each book was made as much as possible like the writing of the original manuscript. As printers moved from place to place introducing their art, it seems that not one carried away the types of his master but each made his own anew. Type was originally made and set up by hand, piece by piece, so that even the production of printed books was very slow. Various mechanical devices have been invented from time to time, quickening and cheapening the making of books and other printed matter, so that to-day printers turn out books and papers in large quantities in an amazingly short time. [Illustration: THE PRINTING PRESS IN BOSTON AT WHICH FRANKLIN WORKED] The first newspaper in the world is believed to have been the _Frankfurter Journal_, published about 1615 A.D. at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in Germany. But of this there is no certainty. Newspapers, however, had their beginnings in Germany and Italy some time in the latter part of the sixteenth or the first part of the seventeenth century. It is believed that the _Weekly News_, started in London in 1622, was the first newspaper published in England. In the United States there was a printing press attached to Harvard College, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, as early as 1638, two years after the college was founded, and only six years after the settlement of Boston. With this one exception, for a long time there were no printing presses in the colonies. A newspaper called _Publick Occurrences_ was started in Boston in 1690, but it was soon afterward suppressed by the British government. The first permanent newspaper in America was the _Boston News Letter_, established at Boston in 1704.