The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1873-07-10
Our Home Department.
What n Western Editor says OF the Local
Department of n Newspaper.

" not n western Eu1tOr says OF tne LOcnl
Department of n Newspaper.
The local news is the most important
feature of newspaper, says Colonel
Calkins in his address before the Wis
consin Editorial Convention, for the
vast majority of readers. 1t is like So
cial gossip, and it has a pungency and
attraction; if well told, which record
of the. most important remote events
does not possess. If the reader knows
personally all about the facts which are
described, so much the better for the
account of dog fight which he, him
self, beheld, or the report of a meeting
which he attended, or in which he par
ticipated, will be perused by him with
greater inerest than he would feel in
the most thrilling description by an eye
witness of the capture of a Modoc chief
tain. A man will read with absorbing
interest every line in a description of
fire at which he was present, and the
Hinutest details of which he already
knows and if he can find an audience
to listen, he will read it again to them
aloud. If he took part in subduingthe
fire, the account will possess a double
charm and ravishment, and his eye will
kindle, and his cheek will glow as he
fights anew in print the battle with the
| flames. To see in print what the eyes
saw occur yields an indescribable pleas
IRE to the human mind. AS we live
again in our children, we live over again
the eventful moments which the news
paper reproduces before us. Whatever
men stop in the street to talk about, or
women meet at the tea table to discuss,
is of sufficient Importance for the local
columns of the newspaper. have seen
local editor, (who did not understand
his business), enter breathlessly the
office in which he was employed, and
describe orally, with animated elo.
quence, an event which he had seen, or
which rumor had conveyed to him, and
which he would never think of writing
up for the paper, until told to do so.
We have also, all of us, known men who
would have been invaluable journalists
if they had possessed the faculty of
writing out their observations for the
printer for they find out what every
body else wants to know all about, and
they will tell the news of the town by
the hour to curb-stone listeners but
they fail to comprehend the duty, or the
utility, of putting what they know where
it will do most good. The talk of the
streets, the counting the shops
and social circles is the best material
for the local editor. The ablest editorial
article on the events of peace and war
will pass unread, or without comment,
while paragraph about triplets born
in the humblest neighboring family will
be in everybody's mouth. Every man
takes greater interest in the absence
of his friend or acquaintance from home
than he would in the absence of the
Queen of Great Britain from her do
minions, A bank in New York may be-
come insolvent and ruin thousands, but
we will barely mention it, while, if a
store across the street is locked up by
the sheriff, we will talk about it all day.
An army may be slain in battle on the
other side of the globe without exciting
one of our emotions but we will all get
up, and run to look, and be shaken by a
tempest of feeling, if drunken roust-
about is knocked down around the cor
ner. We feel an interest in the world
around us far deeper and more enduring
than that which we feel in the world at
large. Our home, domestic wonder is
the real nine days wonder. This quail
ity in human nature gives to the local
department of the newspaper an attrac-
ton, if it is well edited, which no other
department can acquire.