'This is the outer room where my clerks sit And keep their sides, the register i' the midst; The examiner he sits private there within-- And here I have my several rolls and files Of news by the alphabet, and all put up Under their heads.' The news writers flourished greatly at this period, but as newspapers began to get a footing, their credit gradually declined--and with reason, if we may put confidence in the following extract from the _Evening Post_, of September 6th, 1709: 'There must be L3 or L4 paid per annum by those gentlemen who are out of town for written news, which is so far generally from having any probability of matter of fact, that it is frequently stuffed up with a 'we hear,' or 'an eminent Jew merchant has received a letter,' being nothing more than downright fiction.' To Butler belongs the credit of having been the first to introduce street newsboys, with this difference, that his employes were of the other sex, and were styled 'Mercurie women.' Butler was a stanch royalist, and consequently suffered the vengeance of the Parliamentary party. He fell into great poverty, and, according to Anthony a Wood, died on board Prince Rupert's fleet in Kinsale harbor, in 1649, just as a brighter day was beginning to dawn upon journalism. The struggle between the Parliament and the king set the press free from the multiplied restrictions by which it had been 'cabined, cribbed, confined' and almost stifled in its cradle. The country became flooded with publications of all kinds, of which, while many were trashy, ridiculous, and extravagant, there still remained a considerable portion which materially helped forward that mighty uprising of the people to which England owes her freedom, her glory, and her might. And here, having introduced to the reader the first real newspaper, and the great ancestor of all after editors, and having attended the press through its obscure infancy and perilous childhood, we must pause, reserving for consideration in a future article the fair promise of its youth and the development of its still more glorious manhood. THE CONSCRIPTION ACT OF MARCH 3D.