The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-12-20
THE NEWS CATERER.
II. M. Whitman, in the American Journali.

he down town life of a city there is no :lass so interesting to me as that of the news gatherers. speak of them just as they occur to me, hoping to interest none but those who are more or less strangers to them. Here is this class of collectors and writers of news-a class that has sprung up within half century, and to- day in our own country numbers five thousand men. How little does the great world which they each day epitomize know of them. "The local reporter "- how conten.ptuously the rich man speaks of him as he sits at the breakfast table and glances over the crowded columns of the great daily And yet the wonderful product that lies before him is the work of that same despised being.
 Not alone the news of his own city is given him by the local reporter ;" not alone the details of the market and trade 1; but all night long the mails, the telegraph wires and the cable have been burdened with the work of "the local reporter" :" Debates of senates, movements of armies, ravages of earthquake, desolation by pes
 tilence and food-kings plotting together
 in palaces, peoples gathering turbulent
 and rebellious in their streets-a panorama
 oi the world, as wonderful as the Spaniard's s
 downward glance into all life arrested
 and motionless for his inspection-and
 this is the work of "local reporters" It
 was a wonderful organization that inn
 pressed Webster as he sat upon one of
 the great guns at Quebec and looked at
 the rising sun, that power whose drum
 beat as he wrote: "Rising with the sun
 and keeping pace with the hours en-
 circled the earth with the continuous and
 unbroken strains of the military music of
 England" But a greater power than
 that has been brought into puissant be-
 ing since that time. Under the direction
 of combined capital an army of men act
 ually covers the known world, and the
 far-hashing of their written words out
 strips the sun in its course and distances the tagging hours in their flight. This
 army is made up of ' local reporters"
 It is not difficult to see romance and power ia this class, taking them in their relations with the daily life of the world, and with the great organizations which are bound into the alliances for the ex- change of news. But the stranger, think ing of them individually, might find the air of romance gone. The average reporter IS to all appearances very commonplace individual. He has generally a rather anxious face and wears shabby clothes.
 His complexion is sallcw, and tobacco and long hours have taken the brightness from his eye. As rule, he is not a handsome man. In respect to age he is anywhere from twenty to thirty-ive years old. His hair is streaked with gray, but that does not indicate his age. It indi- cates his work and experiences. He is usually an even-tempered individual who cares too little for the run of people to be often angered, and knows too much of the world to give personal offense. He IS seldom in blues, rarely in love, some times In drink, and generally in debt That's the local reporter.
 The majority of news gatherers are single men. Doubtless most of them feel that their salaries will not support fam fly. Perhaps they are wrong in this, for as class they are better paid than most young men. Moreover, a considerable number ofreporters do support families, and very comfortably, on their salaries. Some ot the best reporters are married men. But whether it is from lack of the economizing quality in the reporter, or from the meagreness of his salary, it has grown to be recognized tenet of the business that reporter can't afford to have family. So he lives in his down town boarding-house or hotel, accustoms himself to the society of those he meets within dozen blocks of his office and | draws every week his salary with which hepays his board and washing, receiving possibly enough to keep him in the lux 1 uries of lite through the week.
 His salary varies according to his . ability and location. If he is in S,. Louis it runs from $I5 to $3o a week in Chi cago he will be paid about the same in Cleveland or Cincinnati it will hardly run above S2o; in Buffalo, Albany or Boston rarely above SIS, and in New York there are good newspaper men who are work ing for $Io and SIP week. Undoubt- edly he is fortunate if he has a perma- nent situation in Chicago or St. Louis, although his living expenses may be heavier than they would be in the eastern cities. On most of the papers here the new man is put down on the pay roll for something like SIo a week, but this IS soon raised to SI5 or $2o, and there are few, if any, reporters working in the city now for less than SIS.
 lift is borne in mind that the facts am giving are net intended for those familiar with newspaper life of a great city, but that they are written for people who know comparatively little about it, may be excused for going into detail. The reporter on morning paper, who is perhaps more overworked man than his brother on the evening paper, appears on duty early in the afternoon and is given an afternoon assignment. He is expected to show up early in the evening with his work written out and be ready to take an evening assignment. With this he returns as soon as he can gather the facts, takes his desk and writes put his article. That finished, he re- mains on duty until time for leaving in the morning. This time varies in differ ent offices, as the time of going to press varies. In St. Louis, reporters are sell d0m kent after otfknu~h