Then, as to newspapers, we used to have once a week the “Stamford Mercury,” a very good paper, full of advertisements and local news, but the “Stamford Mercury” was always conducted on this principle: “Opinion is quite free in this country, and we are going to dictate to nobody,” so you never have editorial articles in the “Stamford Mercury.” They used sometimes to select leaders and bits of intelligence from other papers, generally of one way of thinking. Then we used to have the London papers. They cost 7d. each. London papers used to come down the day after publication, after they had gone the round of the club houses, the hotels, and the London eating houses. Those that had been in the eating houses used sometimes to come in rather a greasy form. Now we can have the “Times” on our breakfast table, or earlier if wished. After a time some gentlemen thought we were very benighted in Peterborough, and two of them, very much in advance of their age, started what we should now call a Society paper of a very pronounced type called the “Peterborough Argus.” The first one heard of it was, after one or two publications, that a solicitor had inflicted upon the responsible Editor a sound thrashing for a libel. The case went to the Northampton Assizes, and although the verdict was not quite “served him right,” the publisher got damages of very small amount. It was one of the most scurrilous papers in its way, and at length it became intolerable. We now have in Peterborough four newspapers, besides a most ample supply of daily newspapers. It has been very interesting to witness the growth of Peterborough newspapers, particularly that of the ADVERTISER (the first in the field—in 1854) from its small two pages to the very satisfactory form in which it now appears, with its mid-weekly auxiliary, the CITIZEN. There was also a difficulty as to supply of books. There was a book club, the Church Porch Club, existing fifty years ago, and one or two others, but somehow or other literature did not thrive very much in Peterborough. One gentleman retired from the book club, and when asked why he gave up he said “The fact is I cannot eat suppers any longer.” It does not strike me as a good reason to give up reading, because one would have thought he could have read better without his supper. However, they were not then so badly off for newspapers as they were 150 years ago.