Comparatively speaking, few of them have any extensive telegraphic service, if any at all, in the gathering of news. Those which have not, capture the early morning editions--or the late evening editions of the day before--of two or more metropolitan papers, “crib” their “news” and deliberately run it, in many instances, as special wires to their own sheets. In some cases, which I have personally noticed, that practice was indulged when their own “newspaper” consisted of but two to four locally printed pages reinforced by a “patent inside.” Why should such newspapers (?) be given “free distribution” in the county of publication? They contain little if any real news and less matter of any real informative or educational value. True, the most of them do publish a “local” column or half column of “news” for each or for several of the outlying villages in the county of publication. These “local news” columns inform the reader that “Mr. Benjamin Peewee circulated in Boneville on Wednesday last;” that “Mrs. Cornstalk and her daughter Lizzie are spending the week at the old homestead, just south of town,” that “Mr. Frank Suds shipped a fine load of hogs from Bensonville on Friday of this week,” etc., etc. Most edifying “news” that, is it not? So didactic and brain-building, is it not? Now, why should the Postoffice Department carry those millions of pounds of Reubenville sheets _free_? The department report says it carried about 56,000,000 pounds of such “periodicals” free last year. The figures for this year (1910-11) will probably be around 60,000,000 pounds. Why should the department give away $600,000 in revenues? Besides that, _the department does not know how much of this_ “free in county” matter it does carry and distribute. Of course, it may be able to make a more dependable _guess_ at the total tonnage of such second-class matter than can I. However, any one who has been around the “county seat” or the “metropolis” of any of the “hill” or “back” counties during a county, state or national canvass for votes will know that the postmaster’s scales are often sadly out of balance when he weighs into circulation the local newspaper. In fact, it frequently happens that he does not weigh it at all--especially not, if it be an extra or extra large edition issued “for the good of the party”--and more especially not, if the edition is issued to serve _his_ party. “It goes free anyway, so what is the difference?” the postmaster may argue, and with fairly valid grounds for such argument. The department, acting, pursuant of law, says “carry and distribute your local papers _free_ inside your county.” So what difference does a few hundred or a few thousand pounds, more or less, make to the department? Why, certainly, what difference can it make? It is all done for “the good of the party,” is it not?