The Day the Sow Ate the News
A small-town editor explains why his paper missed a week: a red sow, a keg of ink, and a very narrow escape.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Swampville Wiggler of last week failed to appear because of a dispute regarding a report about Old Bob Crook. While at Colonel Dyke's saloon to collect sixty cents from Major Bones, I returned to my office to find Judge Jones’ old red sow had rooted the door down. She had upset the imposing stone and was standing on her head eating the last of a keg of ink we had just received as pay for a column of advertising. When I tried to drive the beast out, she whirled on me and I had to scramble up the wall, sitting astride a sharp joist for four hours while she finished the ink, ate the tympan off the press, and finally trotted away with our subscription book in her mouth. I had to steal home through the back alley, as the sow had ripped my pants.
“When we get too drunk to set type we are pretty far gone. Now, the fact of the business is simply this: ... Judge Jones’ old red sow had rooted the office door down and was inside playing havoc with things generally.”
Small-town newspapering in the 19th century was often a precarious, barter-based business, as evidenced by editors being paid in ink kegs. This chaotic tale of animal intrusion and financial ruin highlights the very real, physical struggles of maintaining a local press.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.