EARLY DAY STORIES. 243 



formed the outside of the letter which was used for the 

 address. The letter was sealed either with sealing wax or 

 by applying some kind of paste. Papers and magazines 

 were also sent through the mails, but there were no regula- 

 tions for sending seeds, cuttings, merchandise, etc., as at 

 present. In those early days daily newspapers were rare, 

 and were seldom taken by any except residents of the cities. 

 Some of our neighbors took a weekly newspaper, but more 

 of them took no paper at all. However, there was one very 

 commendable plan that was carried out, and that supplied 

 in part the lack of newspapers. Under our laws then exist- 

 ing we had in each township a town library and a town- 

 ship librarian, and in each school district, a district librarian. 

 Every school district in the township could draw from the 

 township library a certain number of books, the number 

 being prorated according to the number of scholars in the 

 district, and when these had been read, they could be ex- 

 changed for others. I read very many of these library books, 

 and obtained from them much of the knowledge that I to- 

 day possess of such subjects as were treated by them. I can 

 say of our old township library what cannot be said of some 

 of the libraries today, both public and private, that I do not 

 believe it contained a single cheap, trashy volume. I doubt 

 if today there is any other one thing that exerts so baleful 

 an influence upon the minds of our young people as the 

 reading of worthless books; and this is all the more to be 

 regretted because the full force of this evil habit does not 

 seem to be fully comprehended by the parents. 



Again I have wandered. But to come back to the sub- 

 ject: Transportation facilities were almost entirely want- 

 ing, excepting to those who lived on or near a navigable 

 waterway. Until after I was eighteen years old it was thirty- 

 two miles to the nearest railroad and that railroad was not 

 worthy of the name as compared with the railroads of to- 

 day. There was almost no shipping of products excepting 



