The Pennsylvania Gazette: March 31st, 1742 issue

            The issue was actually kind of hard to read, because I did not recognize a few words and the lettering or font was really sketchy and faded. In the text, they sometimes use these weird symbols that look more like f’s instead of s’s and I don’t know if that is a typo or if that is what they did in that time, but it’s really strange to read. Also, there are smudges on the newspaper, which indicate that it is old, that cover up words that had to decipher based on the sentence that it was in. Also, there was a weird symbol that stood in place of a c and almost looked more like an e. The spelling in this paper is very weird and grammar is not at all, what it is like today. The language is also very constitution like, if you get my drift. It’s very old and packed and frankly a little hard to understand.

            This issue is all about the succession of the Russian throne by Princess Elizabeth after the Emperor Peter II has died and has not claimed a successor. Then the issue also say that when and if the Princess Elizabeth dies, Prince John will succeed the throne. The issue goes on for a little bit on if so and so dies so and so will succeed the throne, which got a little boring. It’s like in the Bible those long paragraphs that say blah the son of blah who had blah who had a son blah and so on and so forth.

            After that long succession line, the issue talks about Prince Peter II marriage to the Princess Dolgorucky and also talks about certain people coming out from exile. Then the issue talked about the council and who was in it; the Prince of Hesse Homburgh, the Veldt Marshal Lascy, Princp Czerkasi, etc. All in all, there are 11 people in the council.

            When the story ends the issue looks like any other newspaper we have. There are ads. after and people trying to sell stuff. Also there are a few short like six line, very small stories. One is titled “To Be Left”, another is ”Whereas Elizabeth Dunlap.”

            Overall, the issue was pretty interesting. It was exciting to see an old newspaper and also how they wrote back then. Obviously, they did not have any grammar rules because Franklin's grammar really stunk. However, I did enjoy reading it and advise a lot of you that if you haven’t already, go try to find a really old newspaper and read it and find the differences and similarities between a really old issue and a brand new one.