The herald., 1898-11-16
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|, APOSTROPHE TO THE !
COUNTRY PRESS
. ssss

The country newspaper! Life without you
would be dreary waste. Your weekly visit
is anxiously awaited, and should the mail
carrier fail to bring you on the day expected
my heart is sad.
Fifty-two times year you bring me all
the news from home. You faithfully chron-
icle the deaths, births and marriages of the
neighborhood. You keep me posted on par
ties, church socials and village gossip, and
you tell me what the prospects are for good
or poor crops, as the case may be. 1t a
family moves away or a newcomer moves
into town know it the next week. If Farm
er Jones of the Ridge road brings prize
pumpkin to your office l know all about it,
although hundreds of miles away, as soon
as some of his neighbors. You keep me
posted on the improvements that Farmer
Brown of the Lake road contempiates max
ing to his barn sin the near future" And
when Farmer Smith of the Lexington road
started cheese factory at Kidder's Cor
ners knew it here in Chicago the day after
publication.
o, country newspaper! Well may l say
that 'life without you would be a dreary
waste" Once week you are to me an oasis
in the desert OF this hurly -burly life in q
great city.
The city man who does not take his
"home" paper, providing he was reared in
the country, does not know what real enjoy
ment he misses. The news get out of one
issue is worth more than the yearly sub
scription. l devour every line of the local
gossip and neighborhood correspondence
and when | lay the paper aside praise the
o1, g., Ia,
Letters from home are very welcome, but
one doesn't get as much news ira hundred
letters as he does in one issue of the home
paper. And letters are so uncertain; you
sometimes have to wait six months for a
reply to your last one. But if you are sub
scriber to the country paper it comes to you
regularly every week, rain or shine. You
may be little in arrears, but. the country
editor sends the paper along with the hope
that you will some day settle up the mat
ter.
To the man who cannot visit his old home
every year or two the weekly perusal of hi.
home paper is almost as good as trip tt
boyhood scenes. He reads where the little
freckled-faced girl who sat behind him al
school was married to city chap, who holds
Lucrative position with street car com
pany probably motorman; he is in
formed that the boy who was known as thu
bully of the school was arrested fer wifi,
desertion and is "incarcerated in the county
bastile'; he learns from his home paper
that "the Thornton family will hold re
union," and the news is also conveyed that
Aunt Eliza Robertson will be 03 years ole
next week Tuesday," an event which the
city man wishes he was able to be at home
to celebrate.
If midnight marauders" steal seventeen
nicely told in the country paper, and the
editor would be driven out of town if he
failed to make note of the benefit party al
Odd Fellows hall for the NJ. q. church
which was "a grand success socially ant
financially" The receipts, by the way
amounted to over ST." -" "' -
I am interested in the personal gossip O.
my old home, and it is with feelings of gen
uine pleasure that 1 learn ''Mr. and Mrs
Fred Myers wheeled over from Edinbort
last Sunday" or that Miss Ida Wessle
is sojourning for a few days with friend
at Keepvile." The presence in town O
Mrs. Frank Cooley (nee Baxter) of Buf
falo, formerly a resident of our burg" il
duly chronicled, with the additional infor
nation that "she is accompanied by hel
2-months-old baby boy The burning oi
Hank Edson's barn is big piece o
news, as ''it is the most disastrous conha
grafton that has visited this section since
the Fire King destroyed Brown Brothers
cider mill in l879."
If you are sick the country editor writes 6
nice paragraph about your illness, and hi
trusts that you will "soon be able to appear
upon our streets again. if your wife die.
he tells of her many good traits of character
and that she ''bore her last illness will
Christian fortitude;" if your son gets mar
red the country editor tells what promis
ing young man he is and what an "estimabl,
and charming young LADY, is the bride.
If the crops are bad the country editol
sympathizes with the farmer, and if tn,
harvest is good he rejoices. He gives ava,
hundreds of dollars worth of advertisin,
every year, for which he scarcely receives {
polite "thank you;" he is looked upon b,
many people as an object of charity, ant
when they pay him their subscription the,
say to themselves: "Well, it will help to keel
him out of the poorhouse for awhile;" h
works harder and puts in more hours a
labor than any man in town-if he didn't h,
would be in the poorhouse.
0, country editor! Dear friend, 1 deriv
much happiness every week from readin,
your paper and wish it were in my power t,
make your business tenfold better payin
than it is. May your advertising increas
until you are compelled to print large
paper, and may your subscribers come to th
office or send you by mail the money du
you. May your days be full of happiness
and at night when you sit around the famil,
hearthstone may your thoughts be those o
sweet contentment.-John Kelley in Chi
cago Times Herald.
Wall paper, late styles. low prices, at A
A. Ecks trom's. 324 South Spring street.
EWuY 1 - ~U UVu