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Show ' o PRESS AS A HOSTILE POWER In 1633 Roger L'Estrange, "Overseer of the Pre a a." Advocated the 8e-vereat 8e-vereat Reatrlctlona. There wsa a time in England when government officially viewed the press as a hostile power, to be destroyed If possible to be curbed at any cost. In ItUI ItoRc-r L'tCstrange, "overseer of the press." brought out his "Cotiaidera-ttons "Cotiaidera-ttons and Proposals: In Order to the Regulation of the Press." He advocated advoca-ted the severest restrictions for authors au-thors snd printers. nS well as for "the letter founders and the smiths and Joiners that wark upon the premises and "the stitchers, binders, stationers, hawkers, mercury -tonien. edd!ers, ballad singers, posts, carriers, hackney coachmen, boatmen and mariners." A proposal of L'Kst range was that culprits cul-prits convicted of having broken the law should bo condemned "to wear some visible badge or mark of Ignominy, Igno-miny, as a halter Instead of a hatband, one stocking blue and another red. a blue bonnet with a red letter T or S wpon It" A few years later L'Kst range went one better by declaring that newspapers ought not to be allowed at all He said that the reading of them "makes the multitude too famjijaf W)tjj ths actions and councils of their superiors, su-periors, too pragmatical and censorious, censori-ous, and gives them not only an Itch but a kind of colorable right and license li-cense to be meddling with the government," govern-ment," In 1C85 L'Estrange was knighted. |