of the publication in question. Its first promoters became busy, and, in
some cases, important men as time went on, and gradually they had to
give up their connection with a periodical whose pages for some years
they had done so much to enliven and adorn. The _Town Crier_, I think it
will be admitted, did good work in its own peculiar way, and those who
remain of its early promoters (and the small number has been thinned by
the death of Mr. J.H. Chamberlain and Mr. J.T. Bunce) need not be
ashamed to speak with the enemy at the gate--I mean, to own their former
connection with a publication which was not regarded as being
discreditable to its contributors, or to the town.

One matter in connection with the publication of the _Town Crier_ may be
mentioned as being curious, and perhaps a little surprising. It is
this: that during the many years that the paper was conducted by its
original promoters it steered clear of libel actions. In only one case
was an action even threatened, and this was disposed of by an accepted
little explanation and apology. We often used to hear rumours that
Alderman, Councillor, or Mr. Somebody intended wreaking vengeance upon
writers who had belaboured or ridiculed him; but these threats ended in
nothing, and the first proprietors of the _Town Crier_ never had to pay
even a farthing damages as the result of law proceedings. This is
something to record, because papers of a satirical character necessarily
sail pretty close to the wind in the way of provoking touchy people to
fly to law to soothe their wounded feelings and pay out their supposed
persecutors.

I confess I often used to shiver slightly in my shoes when I considered
the possible consequences of what I myself and others had written in the
_Town Crier_. The law of libel is a wide-spreading net, anything that
brings a man into ridicule or contempt or damages him in his trade or