Beeville is a cross roads town and "The Stinger" is a four-page sheet published by Petrie at spasmodic intervals. Petrie is a man beyond middle age, placid in disposition, perfectly illogical in mind and governed by a desire to follow the course of least resistance, avoiding trouble where possible, but otherwise meeting it with an effort to make a peaceful adjustment at any cost. His desire is to please everyone, and in carrying water on both shoulders he comes to grief. Zeb is Petrie's assistant. A good farm hand was lost when Zeb took up newspaper work. He is lazy, dull-witted, a lout who sets typpe, runs the press and delivers papers. Simon Hicks dominates the town commerically. Among the women there are two factions, each intensely jealous of the other. One is the Ladies' Aid Society, led by Miss Pepper. These are all all small, thin women. The other faction is the Social Reform Society, led by Mrs. Bean. These are all large, heavy women. Petrie publishes articles in "The Stinger" which are offensive to the two factions and in trying to square himself he gets in deeper. Then to pacify the Social Reformers he attacks Simon Hick's saloon business and loses all of the advertising which had supported the paper. In an effort to mollify Hicks he drinks himself very drunk. In this condition he is discovered by the Ladies' Aid Society leader, and in a supreme effort to get straight with her he attacks the loafers' club that gathers daily before Hick's store. This is the last straw. The loafers organize, seize Petrie and ride him away on a rail. - Moving Picture World, September 30, 1916