So few newspapers came into country places that before service on Sundays the farmers gathered round anybody in the churchyard who was known to take in a paper, to get particulars from this fortunate individual.

Letters rarely came to the farmhouse door then.

The old postman made a very good thing of his office--people were so eager for news, and it was easy to take a magpie glance at a newspaper.

So he called at the butcher's before he started out, and in exchange for a peep at the paper got a little bit of griskin, or a chop, and at the farmhouses as he passed they gave him a few eggs, and at the inns a drop of gin.

Thus a dozen at least read scraps before it reached the rightful owner.
If anything very extraordinary had happened he would shout it out as he went through the hamlet.