The Norfolk post. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1865-1866, 1865-06-29
Life on a Daily Morning Paper.

The editor ofthe Indianapolis Journal
told the simple truth when he wrote the
following:-
Little does the reader know of the tolls
| and vexations incident to labour on a
morning paper. AS the damp sheet,
filled with the latest news, is opened at
| the breakfast table, and the eye eagerly
devours "where is Sherman" "where
Sheridan" "what is Grant doing"
''W9iat have we gained" "what lost"
and "the situation" is read, and all the
editor thinks, and what the funny local
| says, and the facts and fancies presented
either to amuse or put the thinking ia
culties in operation-does the reader
think for an instant of the thrObbing
brain, the tevered brow, the incessant
trcadmill toll, necessary to create and
gather so much from all quarters of the
earth? Not for minute! He has paid
his money. He takes his choice. But
let us give him little history of life on
a daily paper, and if he don't sympathize
he will at least know how hard thing
it is to labour and to wait.
At early dawn (for we will commence
when the paper is out, and go on till the
next daybreak) numerous boys are seen
rushing from the basement of the build
ing where the paper is printed, with
bundles of papers on their arms; these
are the carriers. Next follow the mail
bags to their different localities. AS the
sun rises, the tired pressmen and engi-
neer are seen emerging, pallid with
nightly work. AS it gets higher, the
working force of the Office may be seen
coming in, until at IL o'clock a. m. all
may be at the office.
In the composition room the cases are
filled in the morning, preparatory to
setting up the next days paper. The
tired workmen of the night before-for
it is self-evident fact that all printers
on morning papers are constantly tired
-wearily fill their cases, looking now
and then, if it be pleasant day, on the
gay, healthy, busy throng in the streets
beneath them. Then they go to dinner,
not with an appetite, for an appetite
does not exist in the bowels oil morn
ing paper printer, but with KIND OF
craving to fill up with something, the
same as men eat dried apples at cheap
b0arding-house, or babies eat dirt
Well, dinner is over; two o'clock comes,
and they pitch in to work. Then it is
constant work till six. Then they go to
supper, and find the way thronged with
men whose days work is done, know
ing that in two hours their toll COM
mences, to run all night. Supper is
soon over. An exhausted man eats but
little Eight o'clock finds them at work.
Up stairs the gas blazes, and twenty
pale men work. Illegible communica-
lions bother their eyesight. A heated,
fetid, sitting atmosphere destroys their
lungs. Constant attempts to make sense
out OF nonsense worry their brains. Yet
the fingers are busy; wife and little folks
at home look to them for food. Twelve
o'clock midnight! The editorials and
locals are up for the next publication,
and in comes the telegraph, in detached
pieces, like lingering sweetness long
drawn out. If any horrible spectre was
ever invented to trouble guilty minds,
or to make men insane, it is the tele-
graphic dispatches of the Associated
Press. Full of authorizations, omissions
of words, nonsense personified, how can
reasonable being expect a rational
man, after fourteen hours of work, to |
make head or tail of it? Yet it is some
times done. No thanks to the operator.
Well, the telegraph is up, and the va
rious ''slugs" having corrected, the lore
man makes up the paper, and the CLOCK
strikes "four." Then the tired boys go
home. TO seek uneasy rest and to meet |
the tired pressman again next morning,
who has been running the FOWL train"
all night.
How. amid the weary hours, they
pant for the fresh air, the pen need not |
tell. How they look at maps to find
names of places, and long for the islands
of the sea, where the breezes of health
NAV fan their cheeks and the changing
sound of machinery does not come, is
needless to mention. They toll into
another world, for their reward never
comes in this. And let the reader hope |
for good world for the toiling, patient
daily morning paper men-editors, re-
porters, compositors, and pressmen,