The age-herald., 1898-11-03
APOSTROPHE TO
 THE COUNTRY PAPER
From the Chicago Times-Herald.

From the Chicago Times-Herald.
 The country newspaper Life without you would be a dreary waste Your week ly visit is anxiously awaited, and should the mail carrier fai 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 ehron- icle the deaths, births and marriages of the neighborhood. You keep me posted on par ties, church soeials and village gossip, and you tell me what the prospects are for good or poor crops, as the case might be. If a family moves away or a newcomer moves into town I know it the next week. If Farmer Jones, of the ridge road, brings prize pumpkin to your office I know all about 1t, 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, contem- plates making to his barn "in the near future" And when Farmer Smith, of the Lexington road. started a cheese factory at Kidder's Corners, I know it here in Chicago the day after publication.
 o, country newspaperi Well may I say that life without you would be a dreary waste" Once a week you are to me an oasis in the desert of this hurly-burly life in a great city.
 The city man who does not take his "home" paper. providing he was reared in the country, does not know what real en- joyment he misses. The news get out of one issue Is worth more than the yearly subscription. I devour every line of the local gossip and neighborhood correspon- dence, and when I lay the paper aside I praise the country editor for giving me this privilege.
 Letters from home are very welcome, but one doesn't get as much news in 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 reply to your last one. But if you are subscriber to the country paper 1t comes to you regularly every week, rain or shine. You may be a little in arrears, but the country editor sends the paper along with the hope that you will some day settle up matters.
 To the man who cannot visit his old home every year or two the weekly perusal of his home paper is almost as good as trip to boyhood scenes. He reads where the lit- tie freekled-faced girl who sat behind him at school was married to city chap, who holds Lucrative position with street car company"-probably a motorman; he is informed that the boy who was known as the bully of the school was arrested for wife desertion and is "incarcerated in the county bastile;" he learns from his home paper that "the Thornton family will hold a reunion" and the news is also conveyed that Aunt Eliza Robertson will be 93 years old next Tuesday, an event which the city man wishes he was able to be at home to celebrate.
 If midnight marauders'' steal seventeen chickens from Jake Becker's coop It IS nicely told in the country paper, and the editor would be driven out Of town II ne failed to make note of the benefit party at Odd Fellows hall for the, M. E. church, which was Ia grand success socially and financially" The receipts, by the way, amounted to over seven dollars"
 
 am interested in the personal gossip or my old home and it is with feelings or genuine pleasure that l learn MT anu Mrs. Fred Myers wheeled over from Edln- boro last Sunday" or that Miss lda Messler is sojourning for few days with friends at Keepville." The presence i'll town of Mrs. Frank Cooley (nee Baxter) or Buffalo, formerly a resident of our burg, is duly chronicled with the additional in- formation that "she is accompanied by her 2-months-old- baby boy" The burning or Hank" Edson's barn is big piece or news. as "it is the most disastrous con- flagration that has visited this section since the Fire King destroyed Brown Brothers cider mill in 1S79."
 If you are sick the country editor writes a nice paragraph about your illness, and he trusts that you will "soon be able to appear upon our streets again; if your wife dies he tells of her maEy gaod traits of character and that she ''boro her last illness with Christian fortitude'; if your son gets married the country editor tells what a promising young mca he is and what an 'estimable and charming young lady" is the bride.
 If the crops are bad the -xsE-ry editor sympathizes with the farmer. %sA if tho harvest is good he rejoices. Se gives away hundreds of dollars worth of adver- Using every year for which he scarcely re- ceives a polite "thank you''; he is looked upon by many people as an object or charity, and when they pay him their sub scription they say to themselves, Well, it help to keep him out of the poorhouse for a while'; he works harder and puts in more hours at labor than any man in town-if he didn't he would be in the poorhouse.
 O. country editor! Dear friend. I derive much happiness every week from reading your paper, and wish it were in my power to make your business tenfold better pay ing than it is. May your advertising in- crease until you are compelled to print a larger paper, and may your subscribers come to the office or send you by mail tho money due you. May your days be full of happiness, and at night when you sit around the family hearthstone may your thoughts be those of sweet contentment.
 JOHN KELLEY.