PROVINCE ORE Riis i «CO LU MB Wa)

CHAPTER THREE
The Introduction of Printing into British Columbia

S in the case of the introduction of printing into

the European countries, the clergy played an
important part in the fostering of the printed word
in British Columbia amongst almost insurmountable
difficulties. It is generally accredited that the advent
of the first printing press was through the persistent
endeavours of a Catholic Bishop of Vancouver Island,
Mor. Demers, who finally obtained from the Society
for the Propagation of the Faith in France a gift, in the
form of a printing press and a few cases of type.
Much comment has been evoked as to the correct
date of the arrival of his press, but Mr. Douglas C.
McMurtrie has practically established the year 1856
as being the time that Mgr. Demers began to print.
However, it was not until two years later that we
authoritatively know that Mgr. Demers started to
print a news-sheet, in the French language, dealing
in affairs political and literary, under the editorship
of Paul de Garro, a French count, who was exiled in
consequence of the Napoleonic coup d’ etat of 1851.

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