The Brookhaven leader., 1883-07-05

ConviviaI Habits that Have Wrought
Ruin.
An old journalist of New York wEtes:
Three generations of active-brailed,
Jealous, industrious, persevering, Intel
ligent, instructive newspaper men have
passed away since | began. The old
chiefs naturally died years ago; but the
second generation ought to be here now.
With very few exceptions they are not.
When | came into journalism in 1850,
John X. Armstrong was city editor of
the Timcs-a good natured, open
hearted, easy-going Englishman, of per-
haps twenty-eight or thirty years of age.
He was a good, though not a fast work
er; but gradually getting into the habit
of crooking his elbow too often he slid
early down the grade and passed the
last few years of his life in penury and
distress. There was no earthly and no
professional reason why he shouldn' t
have gone up in the Times staff, so
that the proprietors wouldn't have been
comp, led to seek after strangers and to
intrust that great property to men who
had no sentimental regard for it or its
projectors. At that time Mr.. Franklin
j. Otterson was the city editor of the
Tribune. He was "Bayard" of the
Spirit of the Times. He may have been
thirty-five years of age, but a great,
strong, sturdy, tremendously pushing
fellow, full of enthusiasm for his pro-
fession, good writer and a man of
kindly instincts, l was very fond of
Otterson. | never worked under him.
l did under Armstrong. The Times
was where began. But in later years
when l needed help, MIR. Otterson, hav-
ing left the Tribune, came with me, and
it was no uncommon thing for him to
drink a tumbler, literally full, of whisky
at midnight-and he stood it, too, for a
while. He was capital worker, and as
years stole upon him the fiber of writ
ing was as virile and as elastic as ever,
but he, too, had to give up, and his
later years are passing on plane very
far below that to which his natural
ability, his education and his vast ex-
perience fitted him to stand upon.
There was another man of that gen.
Grafton. Augustus Maverick, a man
of poetic temperament, a pale-faced,
active, driving, quick-working man,
alert in all the phases of the journal
istic calling; but he slipped away, un-
til now, like Otterson, he gives the
work which ought to be supporting
him and his in his old age, and which,
under other circumstances, would be
doing SO. My impression is that Sam
Glenn was in charge of that depart
ment of the Herald at that time.
may be mistaken, but that is my i'm
preston, and, as it was through him
that my work first began, | naturally
felt an interest in him. There never
was more royal nature than his. |
was very fond of him. He had no
enemy but himself. He fulfilled posi-
tions of honor and profit in Boston and
in New York, with entire satisfaction
TO his employers, and did much to
illustrate the possibility of the better
grade of journalism, but his life was
clOuded by this habit, aud he passed
away some years ago. The generation
preceding these people-that is those
who were the editors and the manag-
ing editors above them, of course, died
long ago, the only remaining ones be-
ing Mr.. Dana, who then was managing
editor of the Tribune, and Mr.. George
Jones, who was then a partner of Wes-
ley Raymond q Co., in the business de-
partment of the Times But all that
generation is gone, and, as l say, this
second generation also, including
Charles G. Halpine, one of the bright
est wits and most adroit writer's the
metropolitan press ever Employed;
John Clancy, Charles B. Seymour the
only well equipped musical critic l
have ever encountered in New York
who was at the same time competent
to express recognizably fair judgment
upon dramatic performances; Edward
Wilkins, of the Herald, one of the
brightest of the bright; George Arnold,
and host of others whose shadowy
forms fit before me as | lie upon my
bed, and who to-day ought, in all
human Judgment, to be here enjoying
the harvest of their years of activity.
Their best friends knew their troubles
and they long since went.
There are but few men to-day upon
the press who entered journalism at the
time did, and most of them are doing
well. So far as professional advance
ment and income are concerned, they
are men of repute, either drawing good
salaries or in the receipt of handsome
incomes otherwise, doing good in their
generation, and respected by the new
corners, who look to them for example
and advice. There is no use in moral
izing about it, Two and two makes
four in the mind of an infidel with as
much certainty as in the eye of an apos-
tie, and, without being either infidel or
apostle, or caring to devote myself to
the arithmetical problem quoted, say
that it is equally certain in the minds of
all men of common sense that in the
long run the human stomach can not
afford to wrestle with John Barleycorn.
Please don't misunderstood me- / am
not moralizing. | am talking sense
from a sick-room, and it isn't on the
theory, either, that when the devil was
sick, the devil monk would be, but
when the devil was well, the devil a
monk was he" 1t is simply recogni-
tion of the fact that a course, apparent
ly harmless in itself, brought me to a
condition which lasted twenty-five min
utes, and compelled from the doctors
the admission that my recovery was
this side of a miracle, and that they had
not expected to see me open my eyes
intelligently again; a condition which l
am quite certain was born of the habit
of indulging sociably, not at all for the
sake of bracing up, but purely for the
Interchange of social courtesy with my
friends here and hereabouts.
MICHAEL RAss the London brewer.