The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-10-13
journalism a Perilous Profession.

London World.
Belgravia and Mayfair have long since made
violent rruptions into Grub-street and ater-
noster-row. 1t is writing age even more than
it is reading age. Well-Jorn gentlemen and
ladies are spoken of by their respectable and
aristocratc relatives as having taken to litera-
ture with much the same shrug of the shoul-
ders that might have been expected had they
taken to drink. If an idler or a naval or mill
tary officer suddenly suffers reverse of for
tune, he bethinks himself of 'writing for the
reviews" If clergyman fails to hit off with
his parishioners, or college-fellow gets tired
of his University life, or a public-school mas
ter becomes embroiled with his chief, he flies
to his pen, and produces articles. II wives and
mothers would exc out their allowance, they
embody their ideas or their information in par
agraphs Everyone writes little, and great
number of persons write tolerably. Everyone,
too, who has some special experience to recount
and who is able, by a narrative of novel fact,
to throw new light upon existence, and who
can express himself with clearness, is sure to
find hearing, if only the general interest of
the subject is sufficient. Two different results
have followed from this state Of things In the
first place, literature, or what, for the sake of
convenience, may be calledlliterature, was new
er SO much of profession, or so safe profes
sion, as at the present moment; in the second,
never was there such host of non-professional
writer's.
If the toiler with his pen would make a liv-
ing out of journalism he must adopt tactics OF
a very different kind. He must not look at 1t
as a pis aler but as the central business of his
life. 1t is because journalism has become
more of profession now than it ever was be-
fore that it requires larger degree of training
and practice. 1t needs concentration on be-
half of him who betakes himself to it, and 1t
may be said with confidence that there Is no
training in the world less likely to produce
Macaulay or George Eliot than that OF jour-
nalsm. Macaulsy was tried r,a, as me newspaper per
same role and was not successful. AS mat
fer of fact il is probable that the process has
been nearly as possible reversed, and that the
aspiring historian or novelist has found the
goal of his labors in a newspaper office. There
are, of course, many varieties OF newspaper
writer's and all, from the humblest writer to
the editorial Jove, rank as journalists. But
the man who intends TO make anything out OF
journalism must not look at his apprentice
ship to it as probationary stage in his htera-
ry experiences; he must regard it as a profess
sion in itself; and unless he deyotes himself
heart and soul to its daily labors, and dis
misses the noble ambition to emulate Shakes
peare and others, he will find journalism
beggarly business,
II Journalism is approached in spirit of
earnest industry, and with seme natural quali-
fications-if it is persevered in for years and If
the worker enjoys an average amount OF good
fortune-the newspaper writer will, perhaps,
find himself in possession Of about one-third uf
the income which would be enjoyed by bar