Newspapers are fairly easy to search, after a few minutes getting accustomed to them ??? in the 19th century they tended to be very short (4 or 8 or 12 pages), with the same kinds of material appearing on the same pages issue after issue, so after you discover that page 1 is always telegrams and page 8 is always advertisements, while page 4 has the local news and letters, then you can skim quickly