220 THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. 



fourth or fifth, or it may be the tenth hand, the paper 

 itself must have got there, and if it got there it was 

 read. 



The local press has certainly trebled in recent 

 times, as may be learned by reference to any news- 

 paper list and looking at the dates. The export, so 

 to say, of type, machines, rollers, and the material of 

 printing from London to little country places has 

 equally grown. Now, these are not sent out for 

 nothing, but are in effect paid for by the pennies 

 collected in the crooked lanes and byways of rural 

 districts. Besides the numerous new papers, there 

 are the old-established ones whose circulation has 

 enlarged. Altogether, the growth of the local country 

 press is as remarkable in its way as was the expansion 

 of the London press after the removal of the news- 

 paper stamp. This is conclusive evidence of the desire 

 to read, for a paper is a thing unsaleable unless some 

 one wants to read it. They are for the most part 

 weeklies, and their primary object is the collection of 

 local information ; but they one and all have excerpts 

 from London publications, often very well selected, 

 and quite amusing if casually caught up by persons 

 who may have fancied they knew something of 

 London, current gossip, and the world at large. For 

 you must go from home to learn the news ; and if you 

 go into a remote hamlet and take up the local paper 

 you are extremely likely to light on some paragraph 

 skilfully culled which will make an impression on you. 

 It is with these excerpts that the present argument is 

 chiefly concerned, the point being that they are im- 

 portant influences in the spread of general informa- 



