Connecticut western news., 1874-12-18
AN EDITORS VENTURE,


 He Leaves n Happy Home to Make Mark
 in the City--Thc Prodigaps Return:
 It is a year ago this November, says the New York Iri6une, since McVey gave up the editorship of the Tarry. town NeaVS. "He says it doesn't paw" said Squire Brice at Potts drug shop that night. "Why, he took up that paper when he left college, and les brought up four children and bought a house and lot on it. Doesn't pay, in- deedW "I think Mac would have liked us to run him into Congress, |" said Potts, spreading pitch plaster. in HS Nau t"5e Tort leading part in pO5tiNH p Mac Il make his mark, there's no doubt of that" said the squire. But Tarry- town was out of temper with McVey. Everybody had subscribed for the Nea0s and boasted of it out of their own county. It was none of your tup. penny village sheets," as the squire said tonight. "The serial stories and poems on the first page were of A No. l order; and as for lthe leaders, you might look over the New York dailies long time before you found political matters dealt with as vigorously. Mao handles the other party without gloves, way which makes the articles of those city fellows confoundedly lame. Or where will you find the apt quota tions from Horace or the slJ allusions to the doings of the ancient gods and goddesses Macs classical education tells there That magnificent piece of his, now, on the Credit Mobilier busi- ness, that ended with 'Quis custodset lpsos custodes 2 That was neat, sir, neat. I'm not surprised New York has got him. It swallows up the brains of the country, sir
 McVey, sitting in his dismantled office Che was to leave in the midnight train) felt it was time that his brain found its true work in New York. He was quite assured of the yigor of his logic, the delicacy of his taste, the breadth of his culture. "Men," he told his wife, "with half my ability have coined fortunes in New York and Philadelphia. The kings of journalism began without shoes to their feet. Here am l, grown gray-headed with doling ont ideas to these village folks, and what has it paid? The house cost $1 ,500, and that with the 5000 in bank is the sum total of my life's work. :" "We have lived very comfortably, ventured Mary. "The children. have always been we'll fed and clothed, and now the boys are through college and ready to go into business. Gould you have done better in New York ?" You shall see, you shall see I" smil- ing. "I settled the house and bank stock on you to, day, Molly. It's but drop in the bucket compared to what we will have two years from now" MoVey meant to leave his wife and children behind for the first year of his venture. By that time the golden flood would have begun. New York would have discovered the quality of man who had come to it at this late day. He looked about his office nova large, airy room, opening at the back into garden where he had raised vege- tables Dicky, the local editor, and the three printers going out to weed with him when slack of work. In the closet still lay some mammoth pump kins, two or three sacks of flour and barrels of potatoes, which old Dur borrow had brought in to pay for his advertisement. A miserably petty way of doing business r he thought. He took up copy of the NeaOs there were the funeral verses, kept in type to serve for every death there were the glaring head lines, Burning of Major Shank's barn Incendiarism stalks rampant in our midst P; the report of Miss Prices school examination and the soul-stirring pathos of the valedic- tory; the jokes about our gallant friend Joe Dutton's visits to Crows Creek, and certain young lady there. How small it was-stale, provincial 1! No wonder his brain had contracted in such jail bounds. "No, God knows it hasn't paid p cried MoVey, tragically, thinking of the ten talents buried in the napkin.
 MoVey did not come to this city as do the majority of adventurers, with but the chance of good luck or work. Wood (who left Tarrytown twenty years ago, and who was reputed to have acquired a princely fortune here) had obtained 8 position for him on the Ctar5or, new paper just started, "wlth an i'm mense capital to back it, |" he wrote, "and party influence. !" Wood met him at the ferry. "Come up. We'll give you shake down." he said. "Our girls are at boarding school, so we can afford to keep house in town" The G. ''house" turned out to be two rooms in the third story of 8 showy.looking building, furnished with sofas that turned into beds, and tables that were wardrobes, and a bookcase that resolved itself into gas stove and canned soups, rancid butter and meat, with which Mrs. Wood cooked their supper, washing up the dishes and then seating herself in full dress. What would Mary, with her great eel lars and pantries full of stores for win ter use, think of this sham show, this tid-bit, hand to-mouth way of life !? "We have to economise," said Wood ]; "my income doesn't run over SIC, GOO, and what with the girls schooling and rents, etc." McVey's salary had never been one-tenth that sum but con- pared to this his home had been lux urious as that of an Irish king. Wood handed him little newspaper. " Is that the Clarion ," cried McVey, in dismay. "There is no room there for man to show ability" "You've no idea of the money required to carry & paper even this size. It is to be terse, brilliant, epigrammatic." McVey, in the dusty, stihing office of the Clarion, found himself showed about as the