The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1910-08-24
OH. YOU AMUSING CRITIC,

of uncertain years, that "the Citizen
is very good paper, but the real
nice society people of Honesdale
cannot like the crude way in which
it discusses the affairs of this COM
munity." Faults we have, and big,
confounding ones they are, but in
gratitude never has been laid at the
door of the man who now is per-
sonally answerable for the local as
well as for the editorial columns of
this paper. If the fair critic of The
Citizens present practice of print
ing actual news, without color, bias
or prejudice, did not happen to be
a regular reader of this journal,
and if sundry relatives, both blood
and marriage, did not, to our posi-
tive knowledge, make twice-a-week
practice of perusing every syllable
local items, boiler plate, advertising
and alive should feel constrained
by the most ordinary and natural
promptings of decent gratitude for
favors rendered to send a copy by
special delivery every Tuesday and
Thursday night to our sweet critics
fireside address.
The day of citified things has
come to Wayne county-and citi-
fled things compulsorily include the
citified newspaper. Wayne county
is no longer to be rated back
woods bailiwick, where the fact that
Mrs. Jones and her three boys saw
fit to take dinner in an adjoining
township on a solitary Sunday is
deemed more consequential from
news standpoint than the fact that
her neighbor Smith was badly butted
by his three-year-old bull, or that
Mr.. Johnson broke two ribs in a
railroad smashup on the home di-
vision of the railroad, or that Mr..
Tomkins has aspirations to hold
down a seat in Congress The neigh
borhood comings and goings, the
little harmless, pleasant, congenial
gossip of every nook and corner of
the county, county paper is sup
posed to record-and The Citizen
will cheerfully print every such item
OF news that may be brought to its
attention; but we do not propose to
reflect on the intelligence of Wayne
county people by assuming for the
smallest timetable fraction of a sec
ond that they do not welcome a full
and readable record of the really
big and vital happenings of this
papers territory. The repeated as
surrance of Wayne county people
and we speak now of people who
do not pay for this paper as we'll as
for people who regularly subscribe
that they appreciate The Citizens
effort to give adequate presentation
to the affairs which are actual news
and to which city dailies would ae.
cord three times the space and 10
times the elaboration, is one of the
most sunny features in the daily
routine of the editor of The Citizen
We are glad-we might add
that, like the man from Washing
ton and Africa and Oyster Bay and
the Outlook Office, we are dee-light-
ed-to know that the nice 'sassiety'
people will not like such items of
news" as the business and profess
sional and railroad and political
happenings, at the county seat and
elsewhere within the confines of
this journals legitimate field of
operations. We are by no means
sure as yet that Wayne county con-
tains any considerable quantity of
those weak, insipid jackasses who
see fit to hallucinate their heads
with the old, wornout, discredited
notion that Tom is socially superior
to Jim because his family tree was
planted Is minutes earlier, or on
account of the much more probable
fact that he wears a made-to-meas-
ure suit of clothes which cost $35
while Jim-poor democratic freak!
is contented with one he tried on
in a clothing store and settled for
with a SO bill before he left the
clothier's premises. There are such
men-and women-in profusion in
some of the Eastern states, we
grant, but the soil of Pennsylvania
has never seemed particularly
adaptible to the cultivation of snobs.
There is a saving sense of humor,
an agreeable lack of personal