Middletown transcript., 1881-05-13
DON'T tsE AN EDITOR.

about it, which makes it hard for me
to make up my mind whether / would
like it or not. Can you advise me what
to do, and have you an opening on your
paper r. Thus wrote an ambitious
young man to an editor, and the editor
replied thusly: My son, before you
fully decide to become an editor pause
and give the subject the fullest possible
consideration. AS you see the manly
form of the journalist going into cir
Gus on a complimentary ticket, given
him for 50 so worth of local reading
notice, you may, without looking at
the matter in all its varied aspects,
think his lot an unusually happy one,
but just wait awhile and look over on
the dark side of the fence. All that
glitters is not gold-plated, by sixty per
cent. Some things that shine on one
side are as dark on the other as a re-
quest to postmaster to resign. Don't
think because the editor blacked his
shoes day-before-yesterday, and, today,
has on a fresh collar just from the
washerWoman, and with brand new
saw teeth ironed on the edge, that he
is rolling in wealth. He may smile (if
you insist on it, and yet his heart may
be heavy. His pocket book may con-
tain nothing but an order from an adj
vertiser for three dozen boxes Of liver
pills, and as an article of steady diet
liver pills may be out of season. We
freely acknowledge, my son, that the
editorial chair has its allurements, and
once you get well seated in it, it is al
most as hard to shake off as man who
has an old bill against you, but there
are other walks of life that are far less
laborious and much more remmerative.
For instance, you might start out as
tanner, like Jay Gould, and become
great monopolist. There is no bUsi-
ness that pays better than that of
monopolist. The next best thing to
being monopolist, perhaps, is being
the son-in-law of a mOnOpolist, and in
this great and glorious country of ours,
you know, a young man can marry any
woman he pleases "The only diff
Guilty being" as John Phoenix used to
say, ''tO find one he can please" -"
Again, you might engage as a mule
driver on tOw-path and become Pres
dent of our country, position with
fair salary and no docking when you're
off duty or you can drive an OK team
across the plains, jump gold mine and
buy seat in the .. S. Senate. The
time is past when you could have Sc
cured Star route contract under Sec
ond Assistant P M. G. Brady, but you
can still marry a rich widow, with
farm, and become an agriculturist. In
this great and glorious country of ours
there are any number Of openings for
young man of enterprise, without his
embarking as journalist and writing
ten hours day for glory and compli-
mentary ticket to an amateur minstrel
show. Be careful, my son. You don't
know anything about an editors trials.
You never saw him writing leader on
the situation while three printers
were yelling for Copy and book
agent agent waiting waiting te trade him ..RaXter's
Saints Rest'' for column reading no.
tice. You never saw a seven foot man
with bull dog and club call OH him
for retraction, and get it in less than
two minutes by the town clock. You
never saw female canvasser corner
him up and hold him spell bound, with
her tongue, until he promised to publish
a fifty-line notice free gratis, and you
never observed him trying to get every
patent medicine advertisement in his
paper at the top of a column and next
to reading matter. You would doubt
less think this was an fun, after you
got used to it, but it might take you a
long, long time to get used to it. Then
there are otherworriments, incident to
the life of journalist, that you, in
your inexperienced innocence, have
perhaps never thought Of They
come not singly, but in battalions. "
Why house never burns down or a
horse never runs away aud Kills light
ning-rOd agent until the day after the
paper is out, and before another publ
cation day some detested contemporary
has written up and published the thing
In two columns of loaded plea. Then
the public has lost faith in the editors.
Once theiE uttePanees were set down as
the caSt-ifoR truth, but articles about
eggs with other eggs inside of them
children exercising O mOtheriy care
over nest Of snakes and ministering to
their wants with a cup of milk and a
spoon, and of cats Matching out and
rearing brOods of chickens, have brought
them, mot the cats, we mean, but the
editors), into doubtful Fepnte, Then
some of them have gone to the Legisla-
ture and gotten into bad company,
had their morals all undermined until
tlisy won't go to church more
than half . dozen times a. year, and
when they do go tApy forget the text
before they get home and tFy to palm
off some other text on an unspspecting
public. Ny SOP, We cannot advise you
to be an editor, aad yet, after all is
said, there Is a bright side to it-R side
that glistens like the bottom Of a new
milk pan, but it is not as big side as
the other side. Do you see that hand
some bouquet Of early spring flowers on
the sspatBm table, and into which ever
apd anon the editor sticks four inches
of his Roman nose ana sspliitfis the sweet
incense, and smiles with a loving ten
derness that drives the crOw-feet from
/ II aG L,