Recently there came into my possession a faded copy of the Gloucestershire Chronicle of October 28th, 1876. Its immediate interest for me was an account of the death, truly described as melancholy, of a member of my family. Whilst shooting wild fowl on the banks of the Severn with two friends, he had swum out to reclaim a widgeon winged by one of them, and was drowned in spite of his friends’ efforts at rescue. In the obvious way peculiar to the period the coroner is reported as having addressed the jury thus: We seem to have all the evidence. It is a most melancholy case; certainly one of the most melancholy that I have had to sit upon for some time. It is a very sad thing—a young fellow, whom most of us knew, went out for amusement and lost his life. I suppose the water was cold? .... It is a melancholy and sad case. . . . No doubt the poor gentleman met his death accidentally and that will be your verdict.’

After indulging in what I must call a certain vicarious concern in this grief that was, I turned my attention to the remainder of the paper, so unfamiliar in its size, its closely printed columns, and its lack of pictorial illustration. There is a certain measured tread in the style of newspaper writing, even in the advertisements, of those days. We observe the same characteristic in the old bound Tablets and Punches of the ‘70’s. To us who are accustomed to find our persiflage light and airy, there is an inverted comicality in the older ways.