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National Library News |
by Elaine Hoag,
Rare Book Collection
The last-minute business of a nineteenth-century newspaper office on New Year's Eve often included the composition and printing of a broadside known as the "Carrier's Address". Traditionally written in verse by the editor, the Address summarized the historical events of the year, reflected on the passage of time, and requested that the subscriber tip the poor newsboy who would deliver the Address on New Year's Day. As part of the tradition of the "Carrier's Address", the editor often wrote in the guise of the newsboy or "printer's devil", as he was called in the days when the carrier doubled as printer's apprentice. An Address issued in 1847 by the Toronto British Colonist uses this tradition to lament the heavy annual task of versifying: Rose at five this morning -- restless -- could not sleep -- Thought of the address which, whether a printer's boy be a scholar or not -- poet or historian -- is expected to be delivered on every New Year's Day, by every printer's boy to every subscriber...Seven o'clock p.m. At length I am home again -- wearied, tired, dispirited. How little does the lady whose marriage is "set up" for tomorrow think of the trouble I shall have in announcing it to her friends..., or the members of the Masonic Body of the annoying task of correcting the faulty proofs of the gentleman who wrote the article with a long account in Old English about boars' heads...Oh! me miserum. And the address not touched yet...But away with the thought! Franklin never lamented his lot, neither will I. I shall be editor some day! 2 These lines provide an entertaining glimpse into the working conditions, hours, duties and aspirations of the printer's apprentice in Toronto in 1847. A Carrier's Address often gives such valuable insights into local opinions and social conditions. And editors seldom passed up the opportunity to comment on political events of the past year in an intensely personal and colourful way. The following verses were offered by Kingston editor E.J. Barker ("Black Jack o' the Whig") on the 1837 rebellion:
Barker's hostility is not too surprising: a gang of extremists had broken into his newspaper office, smashing the windows and destroying the press. Someone had even poisoned the family dog! Two years later, in equally vivid terms, the editor of the Quebec Gazette used the New Year's Address for 1839 to mourn the proposed union of Upper and Lower Canada: In good sooth, dearest readers, we think that this marriage Was planned in mistake, and must end in miscarriage; While the parties will only agree in one thing, First to shake off the priest -- then get rid of the ring. 4 Étienne Parent, editor of Le canadien, expressed similar doubts about the coming year:
If the Carrier's Address represented a soapbox to the editor and a tip to the newsboy, to the compositor and pressman, it offered a perfect opportunity to display skill in typography and printing. The compositor surrounded the New Year's verses with an elaborate architectural border ingeniously constructed of hundreds of small printer's ornaments. The pressman often employed a variety of colours of ink (including gold, silver, and copper), which required numerous impressions. Sometimes he printed the address on silk, a slippery, delicate substance that is much more difficult to work with than paper. More inventive editors played with the tradition. Barker of the Kingston Whig fancied himself a playwright, and in 1838 produced a "dramatic sketch" entitled Tartarian Revels, or, The Devils among Themselves, instead of the traditional poem. In 1855 the editor of Montreal's Moniteur canadien printed a prose address on cheerful yellow paper imagining the events of New Year's Day in 1536, including this lively conversation between two of Jacques Cartier's companions on look-out duty:
The earliest recorded Canadian Carrier's Address was issued on January 1, 1767 by the Quebec Gazette, a newspaper then only two-and-a-half years old. Doubtless William Brown and Thomas Gilmore, the founders of the Gazette, brought the tradition with them from Philadelphia, the town in which they had learned the printing trade. For no New England newspaper of that time was without its annual Address. The National Library of Canada's Rare Book Division holds 30 Addresses issued by the Quebec Gazette between 1818 and 1864, in addition to dozens of Addresses printed by other newspapers in Quebec and Ontario. The earliest Address is dated 1811, the latest 1915. A list of Addresses is available, and all can be viewed upon request in the Special Collections Reading Room. To welcome 1998, many of the most interesting and beautiful Addresses will be on view over the holiday season in the Special Collections Exhibition Room at the National Library of Canada from December 15 to January 31, 1998, between 9:00 a.m. and 10:30 p.m.
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1 The Carrier Buy's [sic] Address to the Patrons
of the Rural Economist. [Markham, 1864 or 1865].
2 Extract from the Diary of the Carrier-Boy of the British
Colonist: Toronto, January 1st, 1847. [Toronto, 1846].
3 Tartarian Revels, or, The Devils among Themselves: A
New Year's Dramatic Sketch for 1838, Gratefully Inscribed to the Patrons of the British
Whig, by Their Obedient & Obliged Servant, Black Jack: Kingston, January 1st,
1838. [Kingston, 1837].
4 The Québec Gazette: Verses, Addressed by the Boys
Who Deliver the Québec Gazette, to Their Patrons: 1st January, 1840. [Quebec,
1839].
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