The groom wore a long pair of overalls and a cutaway coat. The
bride wore a calico dress and apron. They both looked the picture of
health, and were ably assisted the groom by the bride's sister and
the bride by Mr. Sam Meadows, a particular friend of the groom's.
The titles of these Western papers make interesting reading. For example, there was The Hannibal Hornet, of Hannibal, Missouri; The Bliss Breeze, of Dallas, Texas; The Arizona Arrow, of Arizona; The Mustang Mail, of Oklahoma; The Mother Lode Magnet, of California; The Rifle Reville, of Colorado; The Javelin, of Texas; The Oasis, of Arizona; The Creede Candle, of Colorado.
These weekly papers of the West were nothing if not original. One, for example, published notices of births, marriages, and deaths under the following respective headlines: "Hatched," "Matched," and "Dispatched." Inducements to subscribers were often unique : it was not at all uncommon for such a paper to publish a notice like the following: "All subscribers paying in advance will be entitled to a first-class obituary notice in case of death." By way of illustration the following obituary notice may be quoted as typical :
JAKE MOFFATT GONE SKYWARD!
As we feared on hearing that two doctors had been called in, the life of our esteemed fellow-citizen Jake Moffatt ebbed out on Wednes- day last, just after we had gone to press. Jake was every inch a scholar and a gentleman, upright in all his dealings, unimpeachable in character, and ran the Front Street Saloon in the very toniest style consistent with order. Jake never fully recovered from the year he spent in the county jail at the time of the Ryan-Sternberg fracas. His health was shattered, and he leaves a sorrowing widow and nary an enemy.
Many of these papers were published in mining camps and led peripatetic lives. The few of them which have survived to the present time, while having the same name, have lost their indi- viduality with the advance of the telegraph and the railroad.
PEESS ASSOCIATIONS
How the Associated Press in 1880 was composed of smaller organizations scattered over the country has been out
