Batesville Guard

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1884.

KIND READERS, PATRONS AND FRIENDS,

On Wednesday December 24th, Number 52 of Volume 8 will appear, no providential mishap interposing. That number will end the present volume and complete the yearly subscription of many of our subscribers; as yet, but few, indeed very few, have paid for the near coming year of 1885. With financial dread and regret we are, in truth, forced to admit that many of our present readers have not paid for past favors. None there are who owe us for the weekly rations of mental and political pabulum sent out to them for years. Such cannot be endured always. There must from sheer necessity be a halt on the course of this credit path—pathway that has been so hard trodden that deep ruts now almost prevent a safe passage onward. On the 24th day of this month the GUARD will have reached the eighth mile post; there the road must diverge from the heretofore accustomed travel. Hence, the GUARD will begin the ninth circuit of its visitation with renewed resolves, with ardent hopes of renewed favors from friends and patrons of the past—from friends and patrons for the future—and here we may say that friends and patrons are only adjudged as those who wish the Guard well by doing well by it with their moral help and financial patronage; only by that rule of ethics can the friend of any enterprise be rightly judged and classed. Beginning with the new year, a new volume, we ask renewal of friendly relations from each and every one of our old patrons as well as desiring to add new names to the list with, however this proviso: that as an assurance of your kind wishes for the success and prosperity of our undertaking—an enterprise of as much worth to the community and to the county as it is of value to us—that you in the fulfillment of that assurance do come up manfully right and pay the subscription for 1885, in advance, remembering that in advance means nothing less than cash down. After eight years of case-hardened experience, and this experience is not altogether on the outside, but of much inwardness also, we are more than fully satisfied, surcharged, surfeited with extreme experience that the only proper and correct method to successfully conduct a newspaper is to have and require cash in advance for all subscriptions. With that long, struggling experience, we shall begin the new year, the new volume, with a new order of business. Under this new order of business we shall require cash down on all subscriptions entered hereafter upon our subscription book; and we propose at the outset to treat each one alike. Adopting this new order we may naturally expect to lose some of our former patrons, but this cannot be helped by us; it can be helped by them—and by them only. One thing is necessary, and that one thing is to come up or send up the amount now due, and renew for 1885 by paying your money. You have your choice; decide this for yourself. Now, we very much dislike to put claims and accounts in the hands of a collector but if past dues are not settled by the first day of January, 1885, somebody will have the claims for collection with the legal costs attached thereto. So to save yourself—to save costs and trouble, and to save us from this imperative alternative—come along and settle for your newspaper and be happy, that you may be prosperous and make us happy by your good feeling.