The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-05-02
GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND.

1 GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND. L. Richardson, in Louisville ceamnescisl,!!
 There is a set of men in New York whose members make quite handsome incomes by writing letters to out-of-e0wn papers. It is astonishing that there are so few journalists engaged in this paEtic- ular branch of work, but the fact Is that the bulk of all the newspaper letters sent out from the metropolis are written by half doxeu men. One who is acQuain. ted with the people doing this business is obliged to laugh sometime at the petty jealousies and hickerings which arise among them. Men in other walks of life are jealous and acrimonious. But you have got to walk into the field of newspaper correspondence to find inter- nal bitterness and unreasonable anger developed to their highest point. As an instance, let me quote George Alfred Townsend. ; aon't mean :o give the in ference that George Alired townsend Is jealous or unreasoning. ca the con- trary, he is the victim of more verbal at- tacks at the hands of his CO workers than any man of ny acq cquaintance. Townsend is undoubtedly the leader of the out-of- town correspondents. He has more work to do than any two of them. and he gets more than double the pay for it which is given to other operators in the same line. You have to go long way among jour nalists to scare up good word about George Alfred, fact which is due simply and solely to the advancement of his DO ation over that of the people who go by him. Townsend writes on the av- craze four columns of matter a day, and he gets paid, as general thing, at the rate of S7o per column. To hear other correspondents talk about him you would think his work wasn't worth ten cents . ream, but Townsend must be right and they must be wroag, or else he could not command the place he holds and the prices he receives. Townsend's success is due mainly 10 the systematic manner in which he goes about his work. He probably possesses the most valuable and extensive set of scrap books in the United States. In the room in which he does the bulk of his work he has tho walls lined with these volumes of personal in- formation. Ever since he has been In newspaper life he has cut every thing of personal character out of the periodi- calls coming to his hand, and these slips he has pasted into books, which are sub- sequentiy indcxed and arranged in or der. When MT. Townsend wants to write anything about any man of general importance, he merely hunts up the per- son's name in his index, and the chances are that he possesses a pretty clear rec ord, not only of the doings, but of most of the sayings of the man in question. l kyNs sR AAvaa Fl s~fE with the train of thought followed by the different people of whom he writes. and this is of great advantage to him. Town send looks up his material in the after noon and evenings. Before he goes to bed he maps out what he is to do nex, m orning, and the first thing after break fast he goes into his study and dictates the letters for the day. Leaving his stenographer to write out their notes. he runs through the morning papers, and then Strolls out to the hlunts of the busy politicians and other people who have things to say which are worth hearing
 He moves about pretty much all the af- ternoon and far into the evening among the acquaintances he has long estab- lished in this pursuit. Practically after II o'clock in the forenoon, Townsend is a man of leisure. He never takes note or jots down a memora ndum. Constant framing has made his mind almost indel- ible, and when a man says anything in his hearing it is about as faithfully recol- lected as though it had been taken down in shorthand. Townsend is becoming rather portly in his personal appearance. He has round and rather full face, broad through the aw, and rather fiorid as to it's complexion. A small, dark mus tache grows upon his upper lip, and is overshadowed by strong nose. His eyes are gray and his brow is projecting Townsend's hair Is thick and brown, and he talks with the decided manner of a man whose range of information Is wide and accurate. Townseud's income Is very large. have no doubt that 1t ex- ceeds S2o 900 year. He writes for a half dozen papers, and, as have already said, he is very well paid by all of them. Yet he finds time in the midst of his du- ties to turn of an occasional novel and to
 make short lecture tour now and then. Townsend owns the house in which he lives, over in West Thirty-fourh street, and suppose it must have cost him somewhere in the neighborhood of $50, : 900. It is large, comfortable man sion, and it is 90 convenient to the horse rail- ways and elevated stations that he can reach almost any point in the city within twenty minutes.
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