the Revolutionary War, to get paper, and before the war, too.  In 1769 there was only one paper-mill in New England, and that was at Milton, Mass.  They had to advertise for rags, and what they called the bell-cart went through Boston picking them up.  Then in towns like Salem, Charlestown, Portsmouth, they scraped all they could.  Ten years after, my brother-publisher, of the ‘Massachusetts Spy,’ appealed to the ‘fair Daughters of Liberty in this extensive country’ to save their rags, and so ‘serve their country,’ advising them to hang up a bag in one corner of a room that the odds and ends might be saved.  For a pound of ‘clean white rags’ the ladies could get ten shillings!  If you had lived then, and had your mother’s rags to-day, what heaps of money you could have made!  It was hard, too, for us newspaper men to get news.  I was looking yesterday at a copy of the ‘Portsmouth Oracle,’ published in 1805.  That was in this wonderful century.  What did it say on the 26th of January?  ‘News by telegraph?’ and did it tell us what the Hottentots were doing yesterday?  No; it said, ‘By the mails,’ and had one item from Boston two days old, two from New York nine days old, and one from Fredericksburg about a trouble with the colored people, and that news was twenty-three days old!  Rags and news, those two things, how hard they were to get!  And then, ladies and gentlemen, how hard it was to get our pay!  A brother editor in New York, in 1777, told his customers he must charge them, for ‘a quarter of news,’ twelve pounds of beef, seven pounds of cheese, and so on, or he must have their worth in money, and he tells them to bring in the produce, or he will have to ‘shut up shop.’  I will now shut, also.”

Making a low bow again, the wearer of small clothes retired.  When Juggie’s turn arrived, he appeared, whip in hand.

“I’m de stage-driber.  In de days ob our ancestors dar were no railroads, but jest common roads.  De fust canal was built in 1777.  Dar was a big road dat went from Bosson to mouf of Kennebec, one up into New Hampshire, and den ta Canada, one to Providence, and one to New York, while New York had two roads, norf and one souf.  I was a stage-driber.” (Here Juggie cracked his whip and shouted, “Get up, Caesar!”) “I ran de ‘Flyin’ Machine’ dat went from New York to Philadelfy, and took only two days; and one spell I took a stage from New York to Bosson in six days.  What do you say to dat?  Don’t it make yer eyes open?  Who carried de mail, do you say?  And haben’t you eber heard?  De stage.  In 1775 de mail went from Philadelfy to New England ebery fortnight in winter, but dey improbed and went once a week, and letter-writers could get an answer in free weeks, when before it took six weeks.  What progress!  De worl’ goes on, and—­so do I.”

Juggie left, and Governor Grimes appeared in the dress of a farmer, carrying a shovel in one hand and a hoe in the other.