The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1892-01-22

DOliCh tONl vi OlllltlCu lIldl WlOlC COl
umns Of items, making from one or
two lines only, to not more than eight
or ten, were a weekly necessity. This
involved work, and developed tact and
taste. | don't think the small para
graph, as ain institution, was observa-
bic in country papers much over forty
years ago but how well it has grown
since everybody sees. 1t has played
its part admirably and represents the
American spirit as few things do; for
in the press Of no other country do ge-
MUS aad wit coruscate and puncture
as they do here. OF course, it is not
in the country paper alone that such
brevity and sententiousness are COM
mon but it has helped along and prof
ted by these traits.
George ID. Prentice, the famous
Kentucky editor, was an adept and
pioneer in making short paragraphs
think book of them was once pub
lished from his paper When his neigh
Dor across the street said, in a political
squib, that "Our party knows how the
land lies on this question"
"Yes,' said Prentice, "and the land
knows how your party lies on this
question"
Whether in repartee or in direct hu-
NOR, he said some of the most notably
smart things that have ever appeared
in newspapers. But to quote further
from them would lead us too far.
Next to the short paragraph the
most distinctive trait of the modern
country paper is its omnium gatherune
of local news. 1t now has hardly less,
and often more, than single page of
township and adjacent village cores
pondence. 1t is true, some of this is
trivial, but many of the writer's of it
live merely on a country cross road,
and perhaps the paper they receive can
boast for its centre little more than a
double cross-road hamlet. Yet from
every source the readers get what they
want. The are told all that happens
and what everyone is doing that Far
mer Jones has put up new horse
block, and Merchant Smith has paint
ed his door-yard fence and repaired
the front gate. No fish are too small
for the local net, and the facility with
which little tidbits of gossip are served
up is really quite attractive.
The old country paper was more
serious and solemn. 1t rarely printed
the most of peoples names more than
twice-when they married and when
they died. To-day nobody's name is
too obscure to escape mention at no
inconslderable intervals. The harm
less gossip which thus goes about is
not only what everyone wishes to read,
but it is made necessary by the inva-
sion of the metropolitan weekly, which
is sold at half the country papers
price. The local field the local paper
can hold, and its prominence is there
fore justified.
do not believe the average country
paper now is really so much better
than the average one fifty years ago.
1t is different because it must be. 1t
is made to fit different environment,
and to cater to different needs. Once
the rural reader took orly one paper.
Now he takes several "a daily paper
and specialized ones, and the maya
zines besides. You can leave many
things out Of the country paper to- day,
and they will not be missed. But the
ancient editor had a good deal of the
magazines function as we'll as that CT
the metropolitan daily's to fulfill. The
best of the country papers that our
fathers read were prime forces in their
day, and the editor then was a great
man, and identified with his sheet as
no editor can be now. Ie was good
giver and taker of blows, and they
were not of velvet. His weekly argu-
ment with the other editor near at
hand was writing of the utmost life
and vascularity. Twas the condi-
ment for the weekly feast, and though
the editorial debate exists today, to
what dimensions it has shruni as a
field of human interest. TO see how
good the old time papers were, look in
any well-selected scrap book of the
period in which they existed. The
country paper, then at its best, as it is
now, was one of the pleasantest ex-
pressions of the human mind. Joel
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