The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-08-24
THE COUNTY-SEAT PAPER
r.ST LOSING ITS OLD-TIME PIC
TURESQUENEss.
How Country Journals Were Run N
Generation AgO-LOcaI Items
Funny to City Readers.

comedies and tragedies would more than
III the pages of the average romantic
novel
The country newspaper Of the old DAYS
was usually located in a dingy old building
n the most pronounced type of rural archi-
lecture At the head of the stairway lead
ing 20 it was a long hail. filled with the
smell OF coal oil and wood smoke, and
blended with the stale aroma of coffee from
the night-before-social at the lodge hall
above and an occasional Whit of pitch
from the new bindery Irvine in the hard
ware store below.
These newspaper Offices usually were Of
one apartment which was the counting
room editorial, composing, mailing and
nressroom. The walls of these old printing
offices were decorated with a generation
or two of theatrical posters and to survey
them was like sauntering through the
atrical graveyard, for there were Ada Grey
in the Bankers Daughter" Mr.. and Mrs.
Mckee in the Two Orphans" Milt Barlow
as Uncle Tom and Dupree & Benedict's
rninstrels The editors chair was always
softened by a bundle of newspapers tied
with strings to the seat. His desk was one
of the kind with a flap in front which
dropped down to the base, forming a slant.
The ink well, with a cork attached by
string. was usually as large as a cuspidor.
The average editors desk, covered with
debris OF years accumulation. was always
placed so that its occupant could have a
commanding position OF the door and at the
same time be free from exposure to any
outside window, for few of the Journalists
Of the old school could be induced to place
a.. in uvh of ba
opposite feudal faction could get the
drop" on them. There was always a case
of rival editors. and most of the editorial
talent was spent on roasting the rival,
which the readers enjoyed, in its spirit of
contest. as we'll as watching a baseball
game or dog fight. Even the printers of
one paper. during their leisure hours, would
sit on the imposing stones and curse the
makeup of the other paper.
The Office of certain newspaper in an
Indiana town was located on street near
a bridge which crossed a river. The drain
age from the street entered the river at this
point and the rival paper further up the
street continually referred to it as ''our es-
TENED contemporary at the mouth of the
sewer"
When a country newspaper falls into the
hands of a city man he turns to the 10
GALS in search of ''Hoosierisms." On the
other hand. country people derive as much
amusement from the society columns of
city newspaper. The county seat papers
are the news distributors for smaller sur
rounding towns and villages, having a cor
respondent in each. For instance:
Bean Creek Items"
cell Peabody is building pig PEN
F~Ir % p
soaked wood to the schoOlhOuse yesterday,
which is considered an outrage on the
school district"
NEIGHBORHOOD HAPPENINGS.
This is ridiculously unimportant TO city
reader. but to people living in isolated COM
munities the doings of an isolated neigh
Dor. such as the building of a pig pen, or
dispOsing of water-soaked wood to the
school trustees, are, respectively, Of as
much relative Importance as the building OF
a residence in the progressive euchre belt
OF a city or the sale of defective street-pav-
ing material to a municipality. Occasion
ally a country correspondent will undertake
70 make his news more interesting by the
use Of three-year-old slang, and, as he has
no opportunity of gaining a fresh supply,
he uses the same expressions many times.
For instance:
Hiram Mullet's wife is making her third
rag carpet since Christmas. Hiram's wife
Is a worker 10 beat the band.
Amos BascOmb traded his bay mare for
a hunting case watch and a double-barrel
shotgun Property hereabouts Is changing
hands 10 beat the band
country correspondent often has the
idea that the sole purpose in newspaper
writing is to be funny. and the result is
sometimes like this:
Preacher Tfnchard has gone 10 raising
chickens on a large scale He ought 10
make a good 'eggsho-ter.
Uncle Zeb Wakefield is getting quite
deaf in one ear. Doc Reed says it's a case
or earisipelas.
Sometimes these items are faxed" by
the editor or correspondent and have a
good quality of humor of a distinctively
Ho0sier character.
Gale Stebbins and Rufe Plunkett are
going to start barber shop in one SIDE OF
Polly Wiggins's bakery and lunchroom.
Doc Reed has headed a subscription 10
buy a rag carpet for the vesttbule ana alsles
OF Rev. MCSwatts church, and Lee Pearce
made the preachers wife a present OF a
granite ware foot tub
Some Of the announcements in country
paper are interesting. The principal OF
the schools expresses righteous indignation
in the following:
II will give SO OF my personal fund foI
any information ledQlHS 10 the
OF the party or parties who placed the vie
smelling chemical on the schoorOOiI
stove"
Sometimes the father OF a prominent
family Of a small community will appear
with the following: Mr.. Issac Jerdon
wishes to announce that his son Henry mas
returned to town after three years absence
Like the prOdigal, he has seen the error
of his ways, and has returned to his
fathers house penitent; he has signed the
pledge. Joined the First NJ. E. Church and
taken a clerkship in my hardware store
where he VIII be pleased to meet all his
old friends"
OF course this style of journalism Is pass
ing and appears, now, only occasionally
many of the papers, once provincial, have
acceded TO the demands, and are com
nensurate with progress and development
along the lines of commerce. industry ano
a higher civilization Ii is no uncommon
thing now for a newspaper plant In some
Of the smaller Indiana cities, 10 De equa
in point of completeness to that of a city
newspaper. 1t is not unusual Tor paper
10 have from three to five type-settint
machines and a perfection wet press
capable of printing and folding ten OF
twelve thousand papers per hour. Like tn'
city newspapers. there is tendency u
eliminate the lob printing feature so com