Digital Mud, 1833

Your Future Watch item ("Digital Ink Gives New Meaning to Paper Recycling," August Bits) suggests that the time may come when readers can receive each new issue of their newspaper printed on the same sheet of paper as was the previous issue. That time may have come 164 years ago, if we can believe a note in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier of December 21, 1833.

"We heard lately," the note reported, "of a newspaper establishment in Indiana, somewhat novel in character. A printer has provided himself with a supply of wooden type[s], and having set up the form of his paper, each of his subscribers furnishes him with a piece of linen or muslin of the proper size, whereupon the printer inks his type with swamp mud, and takes the impre ssion upon the cloth for each patron, who receives his Paper on Saturday, and after reading it, has the cloth washed in the nearest 'crick' and sent back in time for the next impression."

David Kaser
Distinguished professor emeritus
Indiana University
School of Library and Information Science
iuslis@indiana.edu