Old news

At a period about twenty years subsequent to that of our former sketch, we again attempt a delineation of some of the characteristics of life and manners in New England. Our textbook, as before, is a file of antique newspapers. The volume which serves us for a writing-desk is a folio of larger dimensions than the one before described; and the papers are generally printed on a whole sheet, sometimes with a supplemental leaf of news and advertisements. They have a venerable appearance, being overspread with a duskiness of more than seventy years, and discolored, here and there, with the deeper stains of some liquid, as if the contents of a wineglass had long since been splashed upon the page.