[ London Times ]
This newspaper, most correctly known simply as The Times, began publication in 1785 and continues to this day.
The edition of December 27, 1826, carried a theatrical review which briefly mentions an on-stage Newf:
The review is ostensibly of a serious drama performed at Covent Garden Theater, one of the most important London playhouses at the time, but the reviewer didn't care for the play and spends much of the review talking about a brief comic play, a "harlequinade," that was performed after the main work. This work, Mother Shipton, or Riquet with the Tuft, features all manner of dramatic effects and physical comedy: the play is, the reviewer notes, "rather of an uneven quality as to composition; and, for the rest, distinguished pretty considerably by the quantity of leaps and tumbling, and broken noses, and bruised shins, contained in it...." Discussing the various "special effects" and well-done stage decorations, the reviewer particularly mentions
The tailor's shop, with the sign of the Golden Shears, which cut off the Pantaloon's head, with which a Newfoundland dog runs away.