It is almost impossible to assign a definite historical date for the inception of the newspaper as a regular institution created to satisfy a public demand, since so many of the journalistic pioneers were both of a fugitive and ephemeral nature, whilst others were pamphlets rather than news bulletins. But if we strike a mean between the _Daily Courant_ and the _Morning Post_, we may say that the newspaper has enjoyed some two centuries of vigorous life. It has thus witnessed the birth of the Industrial Age and of its offspring, Mechanical Transport, has seen the formation of the United States of America, the peopling of Canada and Australia, the fall of most European thrones, the development of great communities in South America, the birth of flying, and the shifting of the centre of gravity of political power from the semi-instructed few to the uninstructed many. If Stentor has lost his head a trifle at the contemplation of such an unparalleled record of human activity, and of a period pregnant with such almost unimaginable possibilities for good and evil, who shall wonder? II _The Nature of Stentor_ What is a newspaper? Ask any editor or proprietor, and he will tell you that its primary function is the dissemination of news, and its secondary, but none the less immensely important, task is that of commenting on the happenings of to-day or forecasting those of to-morrow, with the object of educating the community and guiding public opinion. So we are frequently informed, in rotund periods, by noble lords who respond to the toast of The Press at public feastings. What, actually, is a newspaper? To begin with, it contains advertisements, mainly of women’s dress, soaps, face creams and powders, chocolate, beer, whisky, tobacco, and motor cars. Democracy’s needs. Then there is a page of pictures, gathered at great expense from the ends of the earth, often transmitted by aeroplane, and providing a feast of new hats and evening wraps from Paris, railway accidents, shipwrecks, upturned tramcars and motor lorries that have fallen into ditches, the more or less recognisable portraits of men and women performing at the Divorce Courts or for some other reason temporarily in the public eye, photographs of film actresses, and pictures of the diversions of the Rich at the races, on the moors, on the Lido, and on the Riviera. Democracy’s peep-show. After these hors d’œuvres come the leading articles, letters to the editor, “nature notes” straight from Fleet Street, an instalment of a serial story depicting a life such as was never lived on land or sea, pictures which are believed to amuse the children, and “leader page articles” largely contributed (or at least signed) by doctors, divines, the wives of ex-Cabinet Ministers, Russian Princesses, actresses, and――occasionally――journalists.