Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1871-08-01
LANCASTER, WISCONSIN, TUESDAY AUGUST l. 1871
Rejected Communications.

The newspaper press of England,
after some days of painful suspense,
draws long breath of relief A Lon
don solicitor bro't an action against
The Echo to recover damages for the
destruction of letter on legal
Reformation" which no had sent to
that journal, but which the editor
did not accept. The Court held that
an author had right to demand the
return of his rejected MSS. if they
were in existence when he applied
for them but an editor was under
no obligation TO preserve rejected
communications, and if he destroyed
them as soon as they were read he
could not be held liable for their val
ue. This is common sense. The ex-
animation Of volunteered manuscripts
is one Of the severest duties of an ed
itor's existence. If to this were
added the duty Of keeping such man
uscripts till called for, every newspa-
per would be obliged at once to en-
large its premises and increase its
force. a great Majority of all people
who know how to read and write
besides many who certainly do not
know how to write-are possessed at
some period of their lives with a
morbid impulse to contribute to the
newspapers. They are persuaded
that any man can write a leader if he
chooses, and that the faculty of say
ing what the people want to hear in
a style suited both to the subject and
the audience comes by nature to all
graduates Of a district school. 1t is
an amiable hallucination which re-
peated failures and rebutfs are rarely
able to dspel. We remember the
case of an anonymous correspondent
who must have sent us in the course
OF two years at least fifty articles, in
tended tor the editorial page, and on
occasions of public excitement used
sometimes to send two in a single
day. Not a line of his copy ever got
into print, but he persevered, and no
doubt he is Fostering some newspa~
per now. The young persons who
believe they have a mission to write
verses, the women who want to sup
port themselves by selling compost
tlons" to the newspapers, and the
scores of people with bees in their
bonnets who visit editors offices with
ponderous essays on incomprehensi-
bic subjects, are still more serious af-
flictions than the mere amateur pub
liclsts. Now, more than ninety per
cent of the articles offered for &C.
ceptance at a newspaper Office come
from these different classes of people.
They write for their own benefit, not
for the editors Their contributions
are not wanted; on the contrary they
are great nuisance. We cannot see
upon what ground an editor is ex-
pected to spend time and trouble
taking care of rubbish that is left on
his premises against his wishes.
OF course there are sensible and
valuable correspondents, and it is for
the sake Of the ten wise men that
journalists are content to bear with
the ninety fools, and to be at the
pains sometimes of saving and re-
storing a great deal eff manuscript
which, on one account or another,
they do not care to use. But it is we'll
TO have 1t understood that this is
done as matter of courtesy, and
not as duty, and that in the great
majority Of cases it cannot be done
at all. This will perhaps seem hard
to writers who have high opinion
of the importance Of their produc-
tons; but their remedy is very sim
pie; let them buy copying-press.-
Ne,O York Tribune.