The vitality and influence of the old-fashioned local newspaper is indeed a remarkable feature of country life.  It would be thought that in these days of cheap literature, these papers, charging twopence, threepence, and even fourpence per copy, could not possibly continue to exist.  But, contrary to all expectation, they have taken quite a fresh start, and possess a stronger hold than ever upon the agricultural population.  They enter into the old homesteads, and every member of the farmer’s family carefully scans them, certain of finding a reference to this or that subject or person in whom he takes an interest.

Some such papers practically defy competition.  In the outlying towns, where no factories have introduced a new element, it is vain for the most enterprising to start another.  The squire, the clergyman, the lawyer, the tenant-farmer, the wayside innkeeper stick to the old weekly paper, and nothing can shake it.  It is one of the institutions of agriculture.

The office is, perhaps, in a side street of the quiet market-town, and there is no display to catch the casual purchaser.  No mystery surrounds the editor’s sanctum; the visitor has but to knock, and is at once admitted to his presence.  An office could scarcely be more plainly furnished.  A common table, which has, however, one great virtue—­it does not shake when written on—­occupies the centre.  Upon one side is a large desk or bureau; the account-books lying open show that the editor, besides his literary labour, has to spend much time in double entry.  Two chairs are so completely hidden under ‘exchanges’ that no one can sit upon them.  Several of these ‘exchanges’ are from the United States or Australia, for the colonists are often more interested and concerned about local affairs in the old country than they are with the doings in the metropolis.  Against the wall, too, hangs a picture of a fine steamer careering under sail and steam, and near it a coloured sectional map of some new township marked out in squares.  These are the advertisements of an Atlantic or Australian line, or of both; and the editor is their agent.  When the young ploughman resolves to quit the hamlet for the backwoods of America or the sheepwalks of Australia, he comes here to engage his berth.  When the young farmer wearies of waiting for dead men’s shoes—­in no other way can he hope to occupy an English farm—­he calls here and pays his passage-money, and his broad shoulders and willing hands are shipped to a land that will welcome him.  A single shelf supports a few books, all for reference, such as the ‘Clergy List,’ for the Church is studied, and the slightest change that concerns the district carefully recorded.

Beneath this, the ponderous volumes that contain the file of the paper for the last forty years are piled, their weight too great for a shelf resting on the floor.  The series constitutes a complete and authentic local history.  People often come from a distance to consult it, for it is the only register that affords more than the simple entry of birth and death.