In the West different conditions obtained. Here the scarcity
of paper was especially felt. The Rocky Mountain News, of
Denver, frequently found itself in the same position as that of
many of the Southern papers and made its regular appearances
only with the help of wrapping-paper, tissue paper, and even
writing-paper. The towns of the West and those in some of the
Border States were compelled, when martial law was declared,
to reduce their size and print little else than military orders and
official notices. On the Pacific Coast there was no increase in
subscription rates. The price of "one bit" (12J cents) was still
sufficient to meet the increased cost of white paper, as the news-
papers did not increase their size, but met the situation by a more
careful pruning of the news items. The California papers became
masters of the art of boiling down the news in small space.
STATE EXEMPTIONS FOR WORKERS
Many of the States in the Confederacy provided for the exemption of newspaper men from military duty in order that the public might not be deprived of newspapers. Some restric- tions were, of course, imposed. In South Carolina, for example, provision was made that the number thus excused should not exceed seven for a daily in Charleston, five for a daily in Colum- bia, and two for a country paper. In Virginia the law exempted "one editor of each newspaper not being published in the state, and such employe's as the editor or proprietor may certify on honor to be indispensible for conducting the publication of the newspaper, so long as the same is regularly published at least once a week."
The Northern States during the war were not so generous in excusing editors and printers from military service. The result was that numerous country weeklies found themselves severely handicapped in getting out their issues. The difficulty was met by sending to a newspaper in a near-by city and having the lat- ter paper print one half of the sheet with the latest available war news. The other half was printed in the country town and filled with local news and local advertising. From this scheme of
