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A primrose by a river’s brim

A yellow primrose was to him

And it was nothing more.

These three lines of Wordsworth, says 72-year-old Editor Arthur Aull, are the rules he runs his paper by. Editor Aull also calls by their plain name things that smell far less sweet. Result: his Lamar, Mo. Daily Democrat (circ. 1,609) is one of the most widely quoted bush leaguers in the country.

Last week fellow editors around the U.S., who subscribe to the Democrat as one of the last of the nation’s free-spoken rural papers, chuckled over Aull’s latest.

Under a top front page heading, GEORGE is BACK IN JAIL, he wrote:

“Well, George Phillips is back in the Barton County jail again and this time it looks like he’ll stay there until he goes to the penitentiary.

“George came in from Verdella Tuesday evening. He was drunk as a lord and weaving about in the east part of town in his truck. . . . On his arrival [at the jail] he greeted Sheriff Bassett with the remark, ‘I’m one drunk son of a bitch.’ And there wasn’t any doubt about the veracity of the first three words of this statement. . . .

“No one but George’s mother would go his bond. . . . He will go before the judge at the next term of court . . . where he will stand helpless before the charge and he won’t get much sympathy in any quarter.”