New Owner for The Reformer
by H. B. Donly

On the 25th of May, 1879, I became a member of the staff of
The Reformer, and during the intervening forty-three years I have been shut in with paper, ink and types. Frankly I am tired, and have come to greatly desire a change. Now an opportunity to make one presents itself and I have taken advantage of it.

On the 27th inst., the plant, stock-in-trade and good will of The Reformer will pass into the possession of the Pearce Printing Company, an organization consisting of Mr. P. George Pearce, editor and proprietor of The Waterford Star, and the members of his immediate family.

It is understood that Mr. Pearce has no thought of any sort of an amalgamation of the two papers. Newspaper mergers are fashionable, it is true, but not in the case of two such needed and useful publications as The Reformer and Star. Both will continue along existing lines: politically, both will remain in the "Independent" class, their columns open to everyone on equal terms, for the discussion or advocacy of any and all causes.

But while there will be no absorption, the merging of the ownerships will be along lines of saving. The two shops are twenty minutes apart and much unnecessary duplication can be avoided. Mr. Pearce, still on the sunny side of fifty, is an experienced and successful printer and publisher; his Star building and plant rank among the best of village properties of their class in the province. His recent purchase stands among the first of town newspapers. In circulation it is second only to one in all Canada.

The new owner will have associated with him his two energetic young sons, Clendon, a practical printer and linotype operator, and Bruce, who is a university graduate in arts, and within a year of his graduation in law. With such an educational equipment he should, as editorial writer, very soon bring back to The Reformer, the literary repute it enjoyed in the old days when Wm. Buckingham, Michael Hamilton Foley and
John F. Clarke were responsible for its columns.