People with a grievance write now-a-days to the Newspapers, in hope of redress. In Shakspere's time the only method to make wrongs public and to show up abuses was by the _Broadside_, in prose or rhyme, passing from hand to hand. Many of these have survived to the present day, and are treasured up as curious relics of a by-gone age. They were frequently libellous and grievously personal, and hence the point of Pistol's remark: Fear we broadsides? _2 Henry IV_, ii, 4. We must not think here that the naval 'broadside'--a volley of guns from the broadside of a ship--is meant. Shakspere does not use the word once in that sense, nor was it a conversational word in his time. That Pistol was indeed thinking of a printed broad sheet is evident from the whole sentence, which, although composed of disjointed exclamations continues with the following expressions, both strongly suggestive of the Composing room or Reader's closet: Come we to full points here? and are etceteras nothing? _2 Henry IV_, ii, 4. 'Come we to full points here?' This question is often a puzzler for both Compositor and Reader. Indeed, few things cause more disagreements between Author and Printer than the very loose ideas held by the former concerning punctuation. Some writers, like Dickens in his early days, insist upon ornamenting their sentences with little dashes and big dashes, with colons where commas should be, and with _Points_ that seem impossible. _Pericles_, v, 1. In vain does the Printer declare that in altering the Author's unregulated punctuation, No levelled malice infests one _comma_, _Timon_, i, 1, the irate Author exclaims, that he Puts the _period_ often from his place, _Lucrece_, l. 565, and adds, 'Follow My _point_ and period ... ill or well. _Lear_, iv, 7. You find not the apostrophes, and so miss the accent. _Love's Labour Lost_, iv, 2. Wherefore stand you on nice points? _3 Henry VI_, iv, 7. The Printer has no resource but compliance, which, however, unless the affront be very severe, will soon Stand a comma 'tween their amities, _Hamlet_, v, 2, and thus heal the breach, and end all happily with mutual Notes of Admiration. _Winter's Tale_, v, 2. 'And are etceteras nothing?' What a typographical question! and probably the only occasion on which so unpoetical a figure has done duty in any drama. The &c. makes an insignificant appearance in either MS. or type, and yet how often it stands for whole pages of matter. Hence the point of the question.