PAPER FOR PRESSES
The war automatically ended the importation of white paper from abroad. Paper-mills had increased until there were over forty in the country. Several of these were laid waste by Brit- ish soldiers, and others lay idle because employees had enlisted in the army. The remaining mills were unequal to supply the demand, so that during the latter part of the Revolutionary Period and for some time later the newspapers experienced great difficulty in securing the paper on which to print the news.
Several sheets were forced to refuse subscriptions until con- ditions should improve. The New Jersey Gazette on April 23, 1778, announced, "No more Subscriptions can be received at the present by this GAZETTE for Want of Paper." The Su- preme Executive Council of Pennsylvania was very anxious to subscribe for The New York Packet, which had been established in New York, January 4, 1776, but was then published at Fish- kill, New York. In answering the request Samuel Loudon re- ported that on account of the scarcity of paper he had printed but few sheets for the past three months, but that a parcel was now on its way to him and that in two weeks he would begin to forward the papers to the Council.
ADVERTISEMENTS FOR RAGS
Advertisements for rags for the paper-mills continued to ap- pear frequently in papers of all sections of the country where presses had been established. Especially urgent were these ap- peals in such papers as The Boston Gazette, The Providence Gazette, The Albany Gazette, The Maryland Gazette, The Hudson Gazette, The New-Jersey Gazette, The North Carolina Gazette, The Fayetteville Gazette to use simply the Gazettes. The Fayette- ville Gazette asserted "that the economical Housewife who sup- plies the paper mill with rags, serves her country in her sphere as well as the soldier who fights for it does in his." The Chelsea Courier, at Norwich, Connecticut, suggested that every hus- band should say to his wife, "Molly, make a rag bag and put it under the shelf where the family Bible lies." The Massachu- setts Spy at Worcester expressed much the same thought when
