Some of the dunning appeals to subscribers were most unique. One printed by Thomas Fleet in The Boston Evening Post brought results even if some delinquents did not renew: "The Subscribers for this Paper, (especially those at a Distance) who are shamefully in Arrear for it, would do well (methinks) to remember those Apostolical Injunctions, Rom. xiii. 7, 8. Ren- der therefore to all their dues ; and Owe no man any thing. It is wonderful to observe, that while we hear so much about a great Revival of Religion in the Land; there is yet so little Regard had to Justice and Common Honesty ! Surely they are Abomi- nable Good Works!"
PRINTER CAPITALIZES MOTHER-IN-LAW Thomas Fleet, who has been mentioned in the preceding para- graph, found many ways to supplement the income from The Boston Evening Post. One of these was from the sale of "Mother Goose Rhymes." Fleet, who had married Elizabeth Goose, was very much amused at the nursery jingles with which his mother- in-law amused his children at night. After he had put them into type he found it necessary to print several editions to meet the demand. So far as can be learned Fleet was the first man to capitalize his mother-in-law.
COST OF PRODUCTION
Fleet also left a memorandum which illustrated trade condi- tions of his day. In it he said: "In the days of Mr. Campbell (the founder of The Boston News-Letter), who published a news- paper here, which is forty years ago, Paper was bought for eight or nine shillings a Ream, and now tis Five Pounds; his Paper was never more than half a sheet, and that he had Two Dollars a year for, and had also the art of getting his Pay for it; and that size has continued until within a little more than one year, since which we are expected to publish a whole sheet, so that the Paper now stands us in near as much as all the other charges." For the sake of comparison of the cost of production of The Bos- ton Evening Post with that of a similar paper published later in the century, the figures may be given for 1798. In that year the editor of The Northern Budget, a weekly paper published at
