THROUGH THE ARCHIVES: From the News Letter of December 1890
The monthly meeting of the committee of the Institute of Journalists was held in the Ulster Echo offices on Royal Avenue. The chairman for the meeting was Mr Thomas MacKnight.
There were also present Messrs John S Hamill, Joseph Laughlin (Ballymena), Alexander McMonagle, James McKee, Charles McKenzie, Edwin G Robinson, William J P Wilson and Andrew W Stewart, honorary secretary.
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Hide AdMr John Weir, editor and proprietor of the Ballymena Observer, was unanimously elected a member of the institute.
Attention was drawn to “ the defective arrangements” for the reporting of proceedings in connections of the visit of the Right Honourable Leonard Courtney, MP, to Belfast, and the “unpleasantness which ensued”.
A resolution was unanimously adopted: “That, having regard to the injurious results to working journalists of the informal invitations to social functions which have recently been given to the Belfast press, the committee are of the opinion that in the event of such invitations being received in future, the journalists in charge of the engagements in the various newspaper offices be requested to establish a common basis of action with regard to the reporting of any speeches which may be delivered at such functions.”
Sunday delivery of letters
In the House of Commons this week in 1890 South Down MP Michael McCartan asked the Postmaster-General whether he was aware that, “during the present year”, a written request for a Sunday delivery of letters from Millisle to Carrowdore had been made to the Secretary of the General Post Office, Dublin, by “a large and influential number of inhabitants” of the district of Carrowdore and Donaghadee.
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Hide AdThe Postmaster-General said: “I have to state that the Sunday post between Millisle and Carrowdore was discontinued three years ago on a memorial from the inhabitants receiving two-thirds of the correspondence; and I shall be happy to sanction its restoration upon similar conditions.
“But the memorial forwarded a few months ago in favour of the restoration of the post was found, on careful inquiry, to represent the receivers of only one-half of the correspondence; and having inquired with regard to the regulations which govern questions of this kind, I should not at present feel warranted in acceding to the wishes of the memorialists.”
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