There are many mysteries indeed about the Papal Press.

Who writes or composes the papers is a mystery; who reads or purchases them is perhaps a greater mystery; but the bare fact of their existence is the greatest mystery of all.

Even the genius of Mr Dickens was never able to explain satisfactorily to the readers of _Nicholas Nickleby_, why Squeers, who never taught anything at Dotheboys Hall, and never intended anything to be taught there, should have thought it necessary to engage an usher to teach nothing; and exactly in the same way, it is an insoluble problem why the Pontifical Government, which never tells anything and never intends anything to be told, should publish papers, in order to tell nothing.

The greatest minds, however, are not exempt from error; and it must be to some hidden flaw in the otherwise perfect Papal system, that the existence of newspapers in the sacred city is to be ascribed.

The marvel of his own being must be to the Roman journalist a subject of constant contemplation.
The Press of Rome boasts of three papers.