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Show WAS FIRST SOCIETY JOURNAL. Hand-to-Hand News Was Issued Nearly 200 Years Ago. In theso days of many society papers pa-pers It Is Interesting to recall the genesis of tho flrsl ono of the race, whlchwas produced In Franco In the beginning of the eighteenth century It wns cnllcd Nouvelles a In Mnln or Hnnd-to-IInnd News In those days nnd tho Inventor was a Indy named Mme. Doublet. Mme. Doublet recehed nil tho best society of Paris and both sho nnd her guests loved scandal. To cater for their tnsto a book was kept Into which every visitor wrote what ho or sho had picked up In the wny of news nnd gossip since tils or her Inst visit, nnd theso nows Items wore nfterwnrd copied onto sheets of white paper nnd taken round to the houses of those ot Mine. Doublet's friends who hnd not culled thnt day. Eventually tho thing developed Into a commercial enterprise, and the llnnd-to-IInnd News wns nli! to nil who wanted It for six francs monthly or $ a cnr. Hut n dollar In those days was, It must be remembered worth a good deal more thnn It Is now. , In 1758, when Mme Doublet wns qulto an old Indy, an attempt wns mndo to slop the circulation of her Nouvelles a la .Main, hut It hnd gained gain-ed so great a hold upon tho public tnsto that the pollco wero powerless to do so. London Express. |