The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1883-08-17
PROSPEROUS PEN DRIVERS.
Concerning Noted Newsmongers Who Tickle
the Taste of the Curious by Furnish
Ing the Gossip OF Gotham.
The Comfortable Incomes Earned by the Poet
OF the sierras and the Omniscent
49,. o. and Reminiscent Gath. e
Also o Glimpse OF Genial Joe Howard, the Old
but Never-Aging Nestor Of
Journalists.

- JSN $3.50 "
perhaps you would like to go into the question
. little further, and hear something of the
large and in some respects curious body OF
men who furnish New York correspondence to
newspapers printed in various parts Of the
country. There are . good many men-and
women too-who make o more or
less sumptuous living In this way. and there
are q good many more who by means Of
metropolitan correspondence add largely to in
comes gained in other directions. Joaquin
Miller, George Alfred Townsend, Joe Howard,
old New York rockingham, Jennie June Croly,
Annie Wakeman, Janet Glider, and q raft of
others, q it their business to tell the count
less thousands out Of Gotham what is going on
here-and a good deal that isn't Some OF
these folks are worth writing about Some of
them are not Take the case Of q man
like Miller-often an interesting writer
OF prose, always an attractive p talker
about the wild life Of the extreme West, GER
tainly q poet by nature, and generally as full
of eccentricity as . locomotive with q wheel
of, Miller cuts a striking figure wherever he
goes. His present occupation is the furnish
ing Of ten rural journals with q weekly letter
written in manifold In addition to this he
turns up q random poem now aud then,
and he makes in all about $1,000
a year. His letters bring him $40
apiece, so that for actually writing . column
and q half Of matter with . manifold pencil,
he receives the handsome sum of 800 week
which is better pay IN comparison with tho
actual work done than any other writer in
America receives. I believe the sisrrsn poet
has also had q hand recently in a new comedy
for Annie Pi1ley-a piece Of work in which he
went 'cahoots" with Archie Gordon.
who is one of the cleverest and brightest
writers in New York. Long ago Miller
ceased to receive royalties from the Danites.
His contract called for a nightly sum until the
total of $4,000 should be reached. He re-
ceived the final $500 two years ago, and has
never turned out another cohesive dramatic
work, though l believe he is all the time doing
something in the dramatic line. Miller's long
hair Of former days has yielded to the persua-
sive shears Of the barber, and he is getting
to be slightly bald. But he wears his blonde
beard just the same, and has never fortaken
his slouched felt hat. Miller has a fine large
head and a game leg. He got his latter adorn-
ment, he says, through the agency Of some
Modoc bullets, For . long time he lived in q
fat in New York, his only attendant being .
colored boy who vainly tried to keep the place
in order, while Miller did the cooking, slept on
the floor rolled up in a buffalo robe, broke the
necks from his bottles in preference to using a
corkscrew, and otherwise conducted his daily
life in a way vaguely reminiscent of his former
times on the border. The greatest mistake
Miller ever made was In not staying in London
the first time he went over. He was q lion on
that side Of the water, where the
quaint freshness Of his poems struck
forcibly upon the minds Of read
,nooouofopoaJ - byo ~ntLol
back here, was considerably guyed, and
for some years lived in more or less poverty.
But there proved to be more stuff in him than
he was given credit for, and he finally came
down to solid, hard work, after giving up the
heaven to represent the great American! nation
as minister to the court of St James. Miller
is pretty well fixed at present, and I hardly
think he Is likely to lose his head sgain. He
is one Of those rarely-found men who have
lived down the animos,ties Of early life, and
whose excentricities, if pronounced, are at lesst
innocent
a,r '-
Another sort of bird is George Alfred
Townsend. You know him, of course. He
writes over the name Of Gath, and he slings
personalities around him with q free hand. In
SokoC4uCASoy AO Alhc Mod . kIcAk Mhuy 0l6-
mics. What is moro, Gath doesn't always mind
what he says. or course, he Doesn't tell down
tight %whoppers you know, but some Of his truths
have an India rubber attachment, for tho sake Of
convenience, that is exceptionally aggravatine
at times. Not long ago, Gath went after
Joe Howard with some statements about
the latter's private relations, which were not
strictly governed by the facts Of the case. In
response to this, q friend Of Towards inter-
viewed Gath according to the rules Of the Bos-
ton prize ring. In other words, Gath was
knocked out in one round. A sarcastic
journalist said to me that night, Townsend
won't fight. He belongs to the ambulance
corps Of iournalism-goes around with a
Geneva cross on his arm, picking up the
wounded" Nevertheless, Townsend is an at
~trac.iye cuss. He writes more matter than
any other one man in America, and more of it
is probably called untrue. But his work
has the merit Of unfagging interest at all times,
and it helps the circulation of the paper he
writes for. I suppose no individual journalist
i'll America is SO much copied as Townsend,
and few il any men get such good prices for
their work. At the time Of the Chicago con-
%vention, for instance, he wrote page after page
for the Cincinnati Enquirer and sold the same
material to the Chicago Tribune. Each paper
paid him $40 q column, and he used to run as
high as nine or ten columns q day. OF
course, he did not do all the actual
writing himself. He had three or four
stenograpners, and he has learned the difficult
task Of debating with rapidity and at the same
time putting character into his work thus
accomplished. Few newspaper men who
dictate give their productions tho same air OF
indi viduality which is possessed by the stuff
they turn out from the points Of their per.
sonal pens. 1t is only when q manis q bette,
talker than writer that he is able to carry his
individuality into dictation. Townsend, how.
ever, has got it down fine. One othe,
thing about him is his memory
which is of q most extraordinary description in
regard to its t~enaoity. He is acquainted with
pretty much everybody in the United States
and l never knew him 10 forget either a face OF
the name Of q mar at all prominent in politics
or other branches of life, If he had once com,
in contact with him. In Chicago, Townsend
used to drift around the hotel Hobbies aut
the outside edges Of. the conven
tien, stopping for q moment and chat
ting with everybody he met Vic was
familiar to him, or. exchanging o word her
and there with people he knew only by reputa
ton. He never took q note that I saw during
the entire time, but he would sit down ever,
now and then with his shorthand men and loa,
them up one after the other with the materia
gathered during the day. He wrote but it'll
with his own hand, but the matter ho turnc,
out was certainly of q apicy and intereslin,
character.
A MAN Of METHOD
Beyond all this power Of memory and facilit
| of expression Townsend has a very svstemati
method Of doing what he Ia about In on
room in his house he has he YalIs liuad witt