The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1868-11-19
Supporting a Co anty Paper.

Supporting Co lnty Paper.
Strange as y may appear, there are
wealthy farme rs and those of other occu-
pations, II. G'lulent circumstances, who are
too p'enurioL's to take county paper.
they cannoa part with the small sum of
Two dollars d year tor the weekly current
news of the county in which they reside
Enterpr.sing citizens, these, who cannot
afford to pay a fraction less than four
cents a week to be informed Of what Is
transporting at home. The man who cares
so little for the affairs in the town or
county where he has fixed his home; who
is so Indifferent to the passing events in
his immediate vicinity, is lily fitted to fill
any position of trust or public import
ance, even that Of road overseer or pound
master. Persons of this stamp, for all
practical uses, might as well be in Pata-
gonia as in a land of civilization they
are of no particular account anywhere
Ignorance of the moral, political, edu-
cational and business affairs OF ones own
town and county, in this age of intelli-
gence and human responsibility, has no
excuse whatever. No man has right to
isolate himself into state Of indiferency,
in respect to the passing events in his own,
or neighboring towns. Nay, every one is
under moral obligation to acquaint him
self with the progress of affairs in the va
rious departments of human enterprise.
He who fatters himself he has no ac-
countability in these matters, is ina pltia-
BILE condition Of mental inertia
4 Rich men, claiming to be patriotic and
Intelligent, sometimes complain that they
do not get the worth of their money in
paying for their county paper, because it
contains so little foreign news and general
reading matter. Such persons do not
seem to understand that the primary OBJ
ject of. every we'll conducted local paper
should be to give the home news in this
age of daily papers, no weekly sheet can
expect toscompete in the matter of early
general news,
Again the same class of persons wonder
why county paper, cannot dispense with
the bulk of itsadvertising, and give nearly
as much reading as papers published in
Chicago or New York. Those who rea-
son in this way have but an imperfect idea
of the business Of newspaper publishing.
Taking the average of the newspapers
published in Wisconsin, and their sub
scription lists do not pay much over one
third of their running expenses. If a
farmer or mechanic should expend twenty
FIVE hundred dollars year in carrying on
his business, when his net proceeds are
only a thousand dollars, he would very
likely soon be sensibly i'm
pressed that he was engaged in losing
occupation. So with the newspaper pub
Usher who should undertake a reliance
on his subscription list to pay expenses,
and only insert few advertisements to
embellish his paper lie would find his
establishment speedily running into debt
There is another source of complaint
which we have heretofore endeavored to
satisfy, but without success. Large spaces
are often found blank in our advertising
col umns, and this is regarded as ;nten
tional on the part of the printer, to save
the labor Of type-setting. A large pro-
portion of those who advertise, contract
for givenspace. If an advertiser contracts
for column for given number of months
he can, if it phases MIN bet ter, have any
proportion Of it left blank These blan /
spaces are the order of the advertiser
-7Tnot the design Of fhe publisher RI
y Phe foregoing remarks are not to be
considered as having any application te
the generality Of readers-the gr eat ma
jo rity of subscribers comprehend the sau
alton of county newspaper. These ex-
plantations are intended only for the few
who complain because unacquainted with
the business of new spaper publication.