county-seat had periodically arisen before; but it had never been so hotly
agitated as now. The paper had been a happy thought of a local politician,
whose conception of its management was that it might be easily edited by
a committee, if a printer could be found to publish it; but a few months'
experience had made the Free Press a terrible burden to its founders; it
could not be sustained, and it could not be let die without final disaster
to the interests of the town; and the committee began to cast about for a
publisher who could also be editor. Bartley, to whom it fell, could not be
said to have thrown his heart and soul into the work, but he threw all his
energy, and he made it more than its friends could have hoped. He
espoused the cause of Equity in the pending question with the zeal of a
_condottiere_, and did service no less faithful because of the cynical
quality latent in it. When the legislative decision against Equity put an
end to its ambitious hopes for the time being, he continued in control of
the paper, with a fair prospect of getting the property into his own hands
at last, and with some growing question in his mind whether, after all, it
might not be as easy for him to go into politics from the newspaper as from
the law. He managed the office very economically, and by having the
work done by girl apprentices, with the help of one boy, he made it
self-supporting. He modelled the newspaper upon the modern conception,
through which the country press must cease to have any influence in
public affairs, and each paper become little more than an open letter of
neighborhood gossip. But while he filled his sheet with minute chronicles
of the goings and comings of unimportant persons, and with all attainable
particulars of the ordinary life of the different localities, he continued
to make spicy hits at the enemies of Equity in the late struggle, and kept
the public spirit of the town alive. He had lately undertaken to make known
its advantages as a summer resort, and had published a series of encomiums
upon the beauty of its scenery and the healthfulness of its air and water,
which it was believed would put it in a position of rivalry with some of