Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1903-01-01
THE AUDUBON REPUBLICAN
BY D. c. MOTT.
OFFICIAL PAPER OF AUDUBON COUNTY
AND OF THE TOWN OF AUDUBON.
Our New Dress.

The REPUBLICAN appears this week
in new dress from head TO foot. Do
you like it? Can you read 1t without
your specs? The old type which you
have scanned these many years has
all been dumped into boxes and ship
ped back to the foundries where it will
be melted up again. New type of uni
form size andfa snowused through
out the paper.
Those of our readers who observed
closely have doubtless noticed that we
have for some years been using three
kinds of type in which to set our pa
per, besides occasionally setting legal
notices, ETC., in still another face, non.
pariel. The editorial and correspon-
dence pages were set out of one kind,
the local pages out OF another, while
yet another was used for patent medi-
cine locals and some items that would
run several weeks. We were driven to
this by the increasing size of the
paper and by the loss of little type
from year to year. We hadn't enough
of any one kind of type to set the pa
per, and hardly enough, sometimes,
of all three kinds.
The perplexities and worries under
which our force has had to labor be-
cause of this condition can be appre-
ciated only by printers. These differ
ent kinds of type must always be kept
separate or havoc ensued. Sometimes
havoc ensued.
That is all past now. We have new
type, all of a kind and plenty of it.
We remember the adage in the Hoosier
Schoolmaster of Farmer Somebody's
wife, who advised her husband to "git |
a plenty while he was 1. gittin'." That
was when the old Hoosier was buying
land at dollar an acre. 1t came in
handy later when it was higher in
price. We have enough type now to
set up the paper and have whole lot
left.
Putting in a new dress is an event
in the career of newspaper. 1t does
not happen very often. On a weekly
paper new type ought to last twelve or
fourteen years and print we'll. The
REPUBLICAN, with this issue, is sew
enteen years old. We think this is
the first complete new dress the paper
has ever had, and we think the Oldest
we have just discarded was used on
the paper at its start. We are credit
ably informed that Kimball used some
of it in printing the Times. We know
not as to that, though we had suspect
ed as much. We were not surprised
when we. were informed that some
OF it had been used by Pinkey in
producing his pious paper, from the
difficulty we have had sometimes to
get it to say the risht thing. But now
this other link to the past is thrown
away.
AS we have remarked, the REPUBIL-
CAN is, seventeen years old. Christ
mas week, 1885, Cousins and Mcclure
founded it. The files, from the initial
number to the present time, are in
this Office, bound, and contain much
valuable local history. 1t has had
but four men connected with it as pro-
prietors. After several years Mr..
Cousins sold to Mr.. Mcclure. In 1894
Mr.. Mcclure sold to j. T.. Griffith,
who in turn sold to the writer in Aug
ust, 1897, five years ago last fall.
During some of the seventeen years
the papers business was not very
profitable. Now its existence seems
reasonably established and secure.
1t is one of the fixtures of Audubon.
1t has good brick building for
home of its own, and is better equip
ped for business than any other paper
in Audubon has ever been. We
attribute this better condition not
only to the kindness which its patrons
have extended to it, but also to its
policy to give in return the full worth
of the money invested with it.