26 JANUARY 1929, Page 22

A Hundred Years Ago

TEE " SrscreToa," JAN-timer 24Tir, 1829.

THE LARGEST NEWSPAPER.

The Times of last Monday surprised its readers by appearing on their breakfast-tables in a sheet of paper double its ordinary dimensions. This Goliath of the printing-house is four feet long and three broad, and bears on its eight ample pages a mass of closely printed matter, which, allowing for margin, covers a surface of twenty-two square feet ; or, to adopt the formula of the Globe, exceeds by about eighty pages the contents of -a good modern octavo volume. How greatly the art of newspaper composition has advanced during the last century in this country (for most of the Continental journals are yet mere scraps of paper), appears from a copy of The Daily Journal, of January 1st, 1723, now before us—its size being exactly that of one- leaf of our Spectator ; and the quantity of information presented to its readers by this black and white dwarf of ancient days, estimated by the same scale as the modern giant, scarcely covers one foot. The Time* purposes to treat its readers with a double number occasionally during the session, when the pressure of advertisements or the interest of public business requires a supplement ; and this for something better than the week's wonder of exhibiting " the largest sheet ever printed "—it saves the supplemental stamp-duty- of - twopence on each copy ; which, on the great circulation ()Lithe journal is question, will amount, we presume, to 701. or 801. every time.

Tax CoLosszuhr.

This wonder of Cockney land was last week opened to the public : the entire design is nor nearly completed, but even in its imperfect state, the exhibition attracts numerous parties of holyday loungers, and, barring the frost, which is intense enough to nip curiosity in the bud, it would already have drawn half the sight-seeing population of London to view it. We ourselves, being the most candid of journalists, confess, that from some cause known or suspected—the cold weather, perhaps—or the-engagements of the season—we have hitherto postponed the examination of the Show with our own Spectatorial organs but, being kind as well as candid, we advise all who are less busy or more adventurous than we, to take the earliest means of transporting themselves to Regent's Park, and (leaving the gardens and waterfalls till spring, and the saloons and prOmenades till they are finished), by means of 'aids thereunto provided, place themselves under the Colosseum's vast dome. They will- look upon London as from -the top of St. Paul's*