68 HISTORY OF AMERICAN JOURNALISM s
other Hour in the Pillory, and to be whipt Thirty-nine Lashes, at the Cart's Tail, round two Squares, and then to pay a Fine of Fifty Pounds."
COLONISTS SLOW PAY
Franklin, in his "Autobiography," has left a permanent record that the colonists were not especially interested either in newspapers or in books. To quote from the pen of this dis- tinguished editor of the Colonial Period: "At the time I estab- lished myself in Philadelphia 1723 there was not a good bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston. In New York and Philadelphia the printers were in- deed stationers, but they sold only paper, almanacs, ballads, and a few common school-books. Those who loved reading were obliged to send for their books to England."
Even those most interested in reading preferred to buy their books and newspapers from England. This fact may explain why so many of the colonial editors reprinted pieces from Eng- lish papers : in other words, they attempted to give readers what the latter wanted. Then, too, the colonists often followed the English custom of reading their newspapers at the public tav- erns. Other conditions prevented a paper from having a large circulation in rural sections. Subscribers living at a distance from the place of publication had to pay not only the subscrip- tion price of the paper, but also the cost for distribution by the mail-carrier. The pine knot, the tallow candle, or the bit of bear oil burning in a saucer afforded poor light for the perusal of a newspaper by a farmer, already tired by the day's toil of clearing forest land.
The fervent appeals of colonial editors to delinquent sub- scribers show how hard it was for the poor printer to raise the necessary funds in cash to meet the cost of his materials sent from abroad. To judge by the notices, the colonial editor ex- perienced much the same difficulty in getting his subscribers to part with . provisions in exchange for newspapers. Yet the co- lonial printer was willing to take almost anything in exchange for subscriptions. Firewood, homespun cloth, butter, eggs, poultry almost anything was acceptable to "ye printer."
