50,000 Times

Last September the austere London Times, most reverend of Britain's newspapers, apologized to its readers for a mistake perpetrated in its youth. Published every weekday throughout the year except on Good Friday, Christmas and Boxing Day,* the Times blamed a careless 18th-Century staff for an error which had caused the serial number on its front page to exceed the proper figure by 23. The mistake, said the Times, would be rectified by numbering 23 issues with the same number: 49,950. Last week, with the grievous error atoned for and corrected, the Times proudly printed its true 50,000th issue. For the occasion it devoted several columns and an editorial to itself, printed two columns of tributes from King George VI, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, many another Empire bigwig.

Founded on New Year's Day in 1785 as the Daily Universal Register, three years later rechristened with its present name, the Times has never missed an issue. It is still published from the office at Printing House Square which was the home of its founder, the first John Walter. John Walter V is today the Times's co-owner (with Colonel John Jacob Astor).

Said Winston Churchill: The Times is "one of the most powerful and respected institutions in the British Empire."

Said the Times: Its greatness as a newspaper is based upon freedom of the press--"not a privilege of the newspaper but a fundamental liberty of the subject."

* Dec. 26, now a legal holiday, so-called because it was the day British tradesmen received Christmas boxes from their patrons.

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