Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1869-01-22

the paper, it was found that former coat
of paper had been removed to make way
for that on the walls. The furniture was
of a carved rosewood, covered with rich
satin damask, supposed to be worth from
three to five dollars per yard. One of the
corps cut small piece of the sofa cover
ing, and ascertained that the upholsterer
had defrauded the purchasers of those ar
ticles, as they (the sofas, not the uphol-
sterers) were discovered partially stuffed
with moss, instead of curled hair. The
| window curtains were of linen and dam
ask-47 yards. foot 6 "a inches of the
former, and 80 yards, 2 feet and 4 1-2
inches of the latter. The carpets were
very rich and costly. In one room there
were 33 carpet tacks, and ii the others 80,
| So, 36 and 73 respectively.
That was an example of the accurate
reporter. He is particularly admired by
the authors of arithmetics, algebras, as
! tronomers and people of statistical
minds generally.
| know of no better description of an
English reporter of the old school, than
the following: "Proby had never been
out of London, never in boat, never on
the back of horse. To the end of bag
wigs he wore bag; he was the last man
| that walked with cane as long as him
self, ultimately exchanged for an umbrella,
| which he was never seen without in wet
weather or dry, yet he usually reported
the whole debates in the Morning Chronicle,
and wrote two or three novels depicting
the social manners of the times he was
strange feeder, and ruined himself in
eating pastry at the confectioner's shop
| (for one of whose scores Taylor and |
i Ia, \, o1x
ton, whence George Colman christened
him King Porus;' and he was always SO
punctual to minute that when he arrived
in sight of the office window, the remark
used to be: There's Proby-it's half-past
two,' and yet he never used to set his
watch IF ever it came to right time, |
cannot tell but if you asked him what
o'clock it was, he would look at it and cal
culate something in this sort: l am
twenty-six minutes past seven - four,
! twenty-one from twelve, forty--it is just
three minutes last three ? Poor, strange
and simple, yet curiously uniformed PROXY
| his last domicil was the Lambeth parish
workhouse, out of which he would come,
in its coarse, gray garb, and call upon his
friends as freely and unceremoniously as
before, to the surprise of servants, who
entertain IAN orrid' jealousy of paupers,
and who could not comprehend why
person so clad was shown in. The last
letter his friend received from him spoke
exultingly of his having been chosen to
teach the young children in the house the
A B G, which conferred some extra ac-
commOdations upon him."
The good reporter must be no Ounce.
He must be walking encyclopedia of
information" There is no knowledge that
will not be useful to him, In our country
an acquaintance with politics and political
history is of the greatest utility to the re-
porter. In England greater culture is re-
quired.
Once upon time there were two re-
porters, neither of whom had ever read
the Bible. Said one, 81 say, Jones, / saw
such queer book at stall the other day
all about building a boat, and man
getting into it with bears and beasts, you
know"-adding, perhaps, few more
palmer hints Of the Deluge. "Why, you
confounded foolP said Jones, "didn't
you ever read Robinson Crusoe before ?"
l am glad to think, for the honor of our
own country, that incident occurred in
England.
Much complaint land with Justice, too)
| is often made by speakers of the inaccu-
racies In their speeches as printed. These
mistakes are sometimes due to the prin-
ter's carelessness, but it is more often the
fault of the reporter. remember an ora
tor who was very fond of interlarding his
speeches with Latin quotations, in order to
display his Learning. One evening he
made great speech at the Cooper lnsti-
tute, believe, something in the way of
composition which he intended should far
transcend anything he had ever been
guilty Of before. On this all-itnportant
occasion, he of course codld not get along
without giving the audience small dose
of Latin. One of his quotations was as
follows: ADsicus Socrates, anaicus Plato,
sed atd;or 6ef'Stds. The reaaer may i'm
agine the orators surprise, regret--in
point of fact, his extreme anger-when,
on the following morning, on reading over
his speech in q prominent New York
daily, instead of finding this bit of Latin
italicised, he found these words printed in
the ordinary type "I may cuss Socrates,
l may euss Plato, said Major Veritas."
II is seldom the mistake is as bad as that.
More often one or two words are
omitted which completely destroy the
sense of the sentence, or wrong words are
substituted which make it equally 11onsen-
sical. To illustrate: Daniel Webster, in
one of his famous speeches, used these
words, "Jove among the gods" The re-
porter, in this case, probably not exact
ly hearing the words, wrote them out,
'EJob among the gods" which, to say the
least, was rather comieal. The Hon. Ben
jamin T. Butler, in a speech at Washing
ton not long since, said that Pandora's
box was like the ballot box, because there
was hope at the bottom of It," The gen.
theman who reported the speech, possibly
with the idea of improving on the origi-
gal, had it printed in this way !" Pando-
ra's box was like the ballot box, because
there was no hole at the bottom OF it p
At social science convention few years
since, an enthusiastic orator remarked
that labor is the only earthly potentate
that shall rule on this continent" A very
proper sentiment one would think, and
to which every one would subscribe. But
the reporter seemed to think otherwise.
He made it read, Labor is the nail lately
patented thai shall rule on this conti-
nent." He hit the nail on the head that
time. There is an ofG-repeated joke about
the mistake of certain New York re-
4 porter (whom, | believe, the craft call
"Spectacles," from the fact that he wears
glasses), who was formerly in the habit
of reporting DIR. Chapin's sermons. The
distinguished divine remarked IN one OF
his discourses that 6 Christianity had been
the orihamme of freedom IN all ages"
The Doctor, and those who heard the
sermon, were rather startled when they
read in the paper few days afterwards