This is the memory palace.

I'm Nate DeMoeau.

You didn't get the news unless you could afford the news.

The newspapers came by a subscription.

We're talking the late 1700s or the 1800s.

They cost 8 or 10 bucks a year.

Your average Joe or Jedadaya or whatever.

Your butchers, your bakers, your candlestick makers, your tricorn hat folders didn't have

that kind of cash to spare.

And they didn't have any need to spare it, really.

As most of the news and the newspapers just didn't concern them.

There were just a few printed pages on power intended for people with power.

Stagie stories of politics and, in particular, the mercantile business.

Reports on which ship was expected to dock in Calais, say.

Rich guy stuff.

And so your coupers and your washerwomen could spend what little money they had elsewhere.

But in the 1830s, there was some sort of revolution in ink manufacturing.

That right there is the limit of my knowledge on the subject.

I almost read an academic article about it, but there was a paywall and I choose to

stand with the coupers and candlestick makers in refusing to pay for something I don't

really need.

Because the only thing you need to know here is that somehow, because of whatever happened

...