Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1878-01-17
5flistellameuns &eadiug.
IN A NEWSPAPER EDITORIAL ROOM.

Clustered among scores of other publish.
ing Offices in New York, loom up the build.
ngs of the Tribune, the Herald, the Sun, the
World, and the Times, white wreatbs of steam
rolling up from their roofs and from the gra.
tings over the press.rooms. The press-rooms
extend beyond the buildings under the side
walk, and the pavement vibrated with the
beat of the machines, which were already
tossing off parts of the papers, the insides or
the outsides, leaving reserve of space for
the news that might arrive afterward. Where
the heat had penetrated the hard flags, some
newsboys had curled themselves in innocence
and dirt. Others lay asleep on the steps,
where the most important and most hurried
of the larger contributors to journalism kind
ly forbore from disturbing them. Occa'
sionally telegraph messenger dived into the
entrance of building, then an errand-boy
from the post-cfice with pile of newspapers
and letters, and then reporter from some
late meeting up town. As a matter of ap-
pearance more than anything else-as the last
"form" admitting advertisements had long
since closed-a clerk sat in the advertising
office, on the ground floor, and drowsed, with
the lights half down.
The two gentlemen entered one of the Of
fees, and began to ascend that long stairway
by which all editorial rooms are attained,
custom and economy invariably putting edit.
ors in garret, whence they may look down,
physically and mentally, on the world they
write about More telegraph boys, compost
ors, proof.readers and reporters, passed the
visitors on the stairs, who, when they had ex-
planned their business to an inky ofice-boy,
we're admitted into the sanctum sanctorun of
a celebrated morning paper.
A close, low.roofed, smoky room, lighted
by innumerable Argand burners, and filled
with little desks, at which sat, STOPPING, busy
men, putting cigars or pipes, and scribbling
with pens or pencils at lightning speed-that
was the next scene opened to them. On some
of the desks were piles upon piles of news.
papers from points as far apart and as varied
as the capitals of Europe and the plaintive
outposts on the Western plains. A little tin
box shot up and down a wooden shaft in the
middle of the room, into which rolls Of man.
uscript were put by an oftice-boy, who rushed
from desk to desk and gathered the sheets as
they came from the writer's hands. From
time to time nervous, sharp-voiced, impera-
tive gentleman, in very much solled linen
duster, called to one or the other Of the work.
ers, and gave orders which would have been
quite unintelligible to layman, who might
have mistaken the establishment for slaugh-
ter-house when be heard pale faced little
gentleman requested to make paragraph
of the Pope" "cut down Anna Dickinson"
"double-lead General Grant" "boil down the
Evangelical Alliance" But making a par
agraph of the Pope simply applied to the
compression of some news concerning him
into that space; and "boiling down" and
"cutting down" were two technicalities ex-
pressing condensation. The gentleman in the
linen duster was the night editor in charge,
the despot of the hour, and the intermediary
between the writers and the printers, the lat
ter being on the floor above, and the little tin
box in the shaft communicating with them.
By three o'clock the last line of "copy"
must be in the printers hands, and from mid
night until that time newspaper Office in the
editorial department is in state of nervous
intensity and activity for which I can imag-
inc no parallel.
The smoke from the cigars and pipes rolled
up to the ceiling, and the pens sped over the
pages of manuscript paper. The writers bent
to their work with tremendous earnestness
and concentration there was not one Of them
who had written less than column that
night, and some were closing two and three