The Plymouth weekly Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1860-1869, 1869-01-21


for that on the walls. The furniture was
of a carved rosewood, covered with rich
satin damask, supposed to he 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 soas, 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 81 inches of the
former, and 80 yards, 2 feet and 1-2
inches of the latter. The carpets were
very rich and costly. In one room there
were 80 carpet tacks, and in the others 90,
55, SO and 73 respectively.
That was an example of the accurate
reporter He is particularly admired by
the authors of arithmetic, 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 q horse. To the end of bag
wigs he wore bag; he was the last man
that walked with cane as long as him.
which he was never seen without in wet
weather or dry, yet he usually reported
the whole debates in the Morning Cronicte,
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 |
bailed him); he was always in perspira-
ton, whence George COlman christened
him King Porus and he was always so
punctual to a 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: / am
| twenty-six minutes past seven - four,
twenty-one from twelve, forty-it is just
three minutes past threer Poor, strange
and simple, yet curiously- informed 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 an 'orrid' jealousy Of paupers,
and who could not comprehend why a
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 &C.
commodations upon him."
The good reporter must be no Ounce.
| He must be walking encyclopaedia 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 ole, 81 say, Jones, | saw
such queer book at a stall the other day
all about building bOat, and man
getting into il with bears AID beasts, you
know"-adding, perhaps, few more
palmer hints of the Deluge. "Why, you
COMPOUNDED 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. l 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 az the Cooper Insti-
tute, I believe, something in the way of
composition which he intended should far
transcend anything he had ever been
| guilty of before On this allinportant
| occasion, he of course could not get along
without giving the audience a small dose
of Latin. One of his quotations was as
follows: Amicus Socrates, dmicus Plato,
sci major reratds. The reader 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 II may cuss Socrates,
1 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 1t equally nonsen-
steal. To illustrate Daniel Webster, in
| Out vi Ills ldlitUto SiltCOLlCS, -NSS'
words, glove among the gods The re-
porter, in this case, probably not exact
ly hearing the words. wrote them out
Job among the gods" which, to say the
least, was rather cOmical. The Hon. Ben
jamin 2. Butler, in speech ct Washing
ton not lcns sine, said that 4" pandora's
box was like the ballot box, because there
was hope at the bottom of it." The gen
| fbaman who renOrted tho eppoch poseihlx
with the idea of improving on the origi
gal, bad it printed In this way "pando
ra's box was like the ballot box, because
there was no hole at the bottom of it :
At a social science convention few year
since, an enthusiastic orator remarked
that 81 labor is the only earthly potentat'
that shall rule on this continent" A very
proper sentiment one would think, ant
10 which every one would subscribe Ba
the reporter seemed to think otherwise
He made it read, Labor Is the na,t latel,
patented chat snail rule on this cont
, nent" He hit the nail on the head tina
time. There is an oft-repeated joke abou
! the mistake of certain New York re
porter (whom, I believe, the craft ca
"Spectacles," from the fact that he wear
g elasses), who was formerly in the habi
1 of reporting DR.. Chapin's sermons. TIL
t distinguished divine remarked in one {
9 his discourses that Christianity had bee
!, the orifamme of freedom In all ages.
9 The Doctor, and those who heard tn
= sermon, were rather startled when the
read in the paper few days afterward
a that Christianity had been the horI
e blower of freedom in all ages"
q Some Of these mistakes which I hay