The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-11-17
The EDITORS Drawer.

One of the most cherished of American in
stitutions is about to disappear-or at least to
change its character and to lose its recognized
characteristics With the New Year the Edit
or's Drawer of Harpers Magazine will cease to
be a repository of juvenile precocity, OF legal
repartee and of ministerial jocularity. 1t is to
give up anecdotes aud ana and excerpts for
original wit and humor such as is furnished
by the corresponding department in the Gem
tury. When Scribner's was started eleven
years ago the comic "copy' was classified as
Etchings, but with lthe success of the Bric-a-
Brac series this title was changed to Bric-a-
Brac. In these eleven years in which Etch-
ings have become Bric-a- a-Brac, and Scribner's
has become the Century, the department has
printed much admirable wit and humor-more
humor perhaps than wit In prose its great
hit was Mrs. Dodge's, Mistress Malone on the
Chinese Question. In verse it has had the
best of the dialect poems OF the late Irwin
Russell and the extraordinary humorous poetry
of Mr.. H. G. Bunner- especially his parodies
of the poets old and new who might have
written Home Sweet Home. A many years
AGO a selection from the Editors Drawer of
Harper's was published as pamphlet with
host of comic cuts of John McLenan A se-
lection of brc-a-brac poems is IN contempia-
tion, to be followed possibly by volume OF
bric-a- -brac sketches with pen and pencil. 1t
is curious to note that every American maga-
zine has department of this sort, while no
English magazine has one-although In the
Table Talk which Mr. "Sylvanus Urban" has
contributed to the Gentlemen's Magazine for
now century and a quarter, we Can no don
find the germ from which the others are de-
veloped Mr.. Aldrich, like Mr.. Howels be-
fore him, finds the Contributors Club OF the
Atlantic the most difficult part of the maga-
zine to keep up to his ideal. In Lippincott's
Mr.. Jossip has recently been made of more i'm
portance and classified. The present Califor-
nian has Outcroppings just as the old Over
land Monthly hfd miscellany called Etce' era
In Appleton's there is an Editors Table,
which Mr.. Bruce has made the brightest part
of the magazine, and from which he has re-
Gently extracted the most of his Bachelor
Bluff At one time it was intended to start
special humorous department IN ApPietohs $, 10
be called Pasticcio but the plan fell through.
In the old Galaxy. when 1t was iortnighty,
there was Miscellany; then Mark Twain was
retained to write memoranda every month";
He soon found it hard task to grind out hu-
NOR as per contract, and the Galaxy Club
Room came into being and was edited for
while by Mr.. "Eh Perkins" and later by Miss
Kate S4nborn. When the Galaxy sank into
the broad Atlantic the latter magazine closed
the Club Room but very opened its own
Contributors Cub II the Editors Drawer IS
only as well suited in the future 30 the taste OF
the present generation of the American read
ing public as the old Editors Drawer Oh dar-
per's was to the taste of former generation,
there can be no doubt of its success. 1t can Dc
of use also in helping along the development
of the young writers of GERS de soclete disclples
of Austin Dobson, who have already been
greatly encouraged in Puck and in the Bric-a-
Brac of the Century.