Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1859-02-25
From the Vermont Patriot,
Country NeWSDaperS.


Country Newspapers.
1t has appeared, for sometime, that the
importance of the Newspaper Interest of
the State is not duly appreciated.
Country printers do not attempt to get
up their papers as cheap as the city week
lies, which are simply re-hash of some
half dozen dailes, because they can't do it.
The cheap city weeklies are made up of
matter that has been used in daily, fire.
quenty tri-weekly, and semi-weekly
and paid for three times before it goes into
.he country. They can well be afforded at
a nominal price. Country printers can't
compete with such papers, any better than
our country tradesmen can compete with
the city craftsmen, and they don't attempt
/ it. Yet after all, we don't see how we are
to get along without some country. All
city, won't do, and people who stop their
country, and take city papers, because they
are a few cents cheaper, should reflect that
the system upon which they act, would ruin
all sorts of business. The country can only
he prosperous by a mutual Interchange Of
business Interests. The farmer raises his
beet, his pork, his butter, his potatoes, and
cannot rely upon the city as market for it
all. He must live in some sense, at home,
and in order that he may live, other inter-
ests about him must prosper One man,
one interest does not make community.
! The Farmer, the Merchant have their pro-
ducts and their merchandise to sell. The
printer has his paper to sell, and it is for
The interest Of each that each may prosper;
and in order that each may prosper, each
Il I IL. 10, fta
people Of the State, if they would not con-
slider it calamity, if every paper in the
State we're obliged to suspend for want of
patronage? Would it not be considered an
unmistakable evidence that the State was
egoing to seed y And vet, look at it bow
immense proportion of all the people of
the State do all in their power to bring
about that calamity! Not a town in the
State that has IFS paper would part with it,
if there were real ability and business to
sustain it. Still, how little is done to keep
it alive Newspapers are necessary to the
business of the place. Stop all the papers
in Montpelier employing constantly some
forty or fifty individuals, and connected with
whom are not less than an hundred who
are fed and clothed in the place, and making
home business of $4,000 to $4,000 at
least. Still, how many are there among US
who never think of sustaining this large in
terest who take not one of our four papers,
and who expect the patronage of those con-
neeted with them, without dollar in re-
turn! We mention Montpelier, only, be-
cause the newspaper interest is the largest,
here. of any town in the State.
Newspapers, it is true, must take their
chance in one respect. Where there is no
work for shoemaker, there will be no
shoemakers, and where there is no work for
printer. there will be no printer; but
where there is community able to support
a newspaper, fairly, and without too much
effort ought il not to be done and above
all, this dropping respectable country pa
pers for no better city papers, because they
come a little cheaper. should be abandoned
1t is precisely as short sighted as it would
be for all the people dependent upon the
printing offices in Montpelier, TO send to
Boston for their necessaries, because they
could procure them few cents cheaper.
1t is for the interest of the newspaper pub
fishers that the merchants and mechanics in
Montpelier should prosper, and it is as much
for the interest of the merchants and me-
chanics that the printers should prosper;
so with any other village, so with the State.
OF what interest to Montpelier, to any
place, any county, State or individual in the
State is the success of a paper in Boston,
New York or Philadelphia? Do the men
who publish them purchase any of our
goods, do anything for US !? Yet, it is not
at all uncommon to see mechanic who is
largely indebted to the printers of his own
place for patronage, sweating about the
streets, getting up club for some city pa
per, by which operation he gets his for moth
inql Neither is it at all uncommon to see
a Postmaster. respectable portion of the
income of whose office, flows from the news
papers in his village or county, engaged in
the same business, by which he gets few
cents postagel
Now, we should like to know what the
shoemakers, for instance, of Montpelier
would say If ,ce were to get up club Of
people for the purpose of procuring guam
tity of boots Of dealer in Boston. repre-
senting that by taking quantity they would
come cheaper than they couldpurchase them
here and by which arrangement we should
get pair for nothing!
To any mans right 10 go where he pleases
for his newspaper, of course we make no
objection, but the simple question is, while
all other interests talk about home patron
age and Sustaining home Industry wheih-
er the newspaper interest of the country is
not sufficient consequences to be considered
asaong other interests as one that ought to
be sustained and encouraged instead of be-
ing neglected and left 10 shift for itself as
no confederation whatever.