Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1886-04-21

have in this country about five hundred
skilled photographers, about thirteen
| thousand newspapers printing in one year
| two billion five hundred million copies.-
The press and the telegraph have gone
down into the same great. harvest field to
| reap, and the telegraph says to the news
paper: '1'll rake while you bind;" and the
| iron teeth of the telegraph are set down at
| one end of the harvest field and drawn
clean across, and the newspaper gathers up
| the sheaves, setting down one sheaf on the
| breakfast table in the shape of morning
| newspaper, and putting down another sheaf
| on the tea-tabls in the shape of an evening
| newspaper; and that man who neither reads
nor takes a newspaper would be curiosity
What vast progress since the day when
Cardinal Wolsey declared that either the
printing press must go down, or the Church
of God must go down, to this time whPk 4
| the printing press and ttt.s pulpit are en-
combination; and man On the Sabbath
| day may preach the Gospel to five hundred
people, while on Monday morning, through
| the secular journals, he may preach that
| Gospel to millions.
Notwithstanding all this that you have
gained in position and influence, men of the
press, how many words of sympathy do you
get during the course of year !? Not ten
| How many sermons of practical helpfulness
| for your profession are preached during the
twelve months 4? Not one. How many
words of exhortation, and denunciation.
| and hypercritioism do you get in that same
| length of time ? About ten thousand. If
you are Gype-setter, and get the type in the
wrong font, the foreman storms at you. If
you are foreman, and cannot surmOunt
the insurmountable, and get the 'forms"
ready at just the time the publisher de-
nounces you. you are a publisher, and
make mismanagement, then the owners of
the paper will be hard on you for lack of
| dividend. If you are an editor, and you
| announce an unpopular sentiment, al the
pens of Christendom are aung at you. If
you are a reporter, you shall be held res
ponslbie for the indstinctness Of public
speakers, and for the blunders of type set
| ters, and for the fact that you cannot work
quite so we'll in the Pickering gaslight and
after midnight as you do in MONDAY. If
you are prOof-reader, upon you shall come
the united wrath of editor, reporter and
| reader, because you do not properly arrange
the periods, and the semicolons, and the
exclamation points, and the asterisks- -
Plenty of abuse for you, but no sympathy.
| Having been in a position where l could see
these things going on from year to year, l
have thought that this morning | would
preach sermon on the trials of the news
paper profession, praying that God may
bless the sermon to all those to whom this
message may come, and leading those not
in the profession to more kindly and lenient
bearing toward those who are.
One of the great trials of the newspaper
profession is the fact that they ara COM
PEELED to see moro Of the shams of the
world than any other profession Through
every newspaper Office day by day, go the
weaknesses of the world, the vanities that
want to be pufed, the revenges that want
to be wreaked, all the mistakes that want
to bs corrected, all the dull speakers who
went to be thought eloquent, all the mean
ness that wants to get it's wares noticed
gratis in the editorial columns in order to
save the tax of the advertising column, all
the men who want to be set right who
never were right, all the crack Drained
philosophers, with story as long as their
hair, and as gloomy as their finger nails, Il
mourning because bereft of soap; all the
itinerant bores who come to stay five
minutes and stop an hour. From the edi-
torial and reportorial rooms, all the follies
and shams of the world are seen day by
day, and the temptation is to believe
neither in God, man, nor woman. 1t is no
surprise to me that in your profession there
are some skeptical men. | only wonder
that you believe anything. Unless an edi-
tor or a reporter has in his present or his
early home, model of earnest character,
or he throw himself upon the upholding
grace of God he must make temporal and
eternal shipwrecll
Another great trial Of the newspaper pro-
fession is inadequate compensation. Since
the days Of Hazlitt, and Sheridan, and
John Milton, and the wailings of Grub
street, London, literary toll, with very few
EXCEPTIONS has not been properly requited.
When Oliver Goldsmith received a friend
in his house, he, the author, had to sit on
the window, because there was ouly one
chair. Linaus sold his splendid work for
ducat. DeFoe, the author of two hundred
and eighteen volumes, died penni.ess. The
learned johnson dined behind screen be-
cause his clothes were too shabby to allow
him to dine with the gentlemen who on the
other side of the screen, were applauding
time, literary toll is great struggle for
bread. The world seems to have a grudge
against man who, as they say, gets his
living by his wits; and the day laborer says
to the man of literary toll: "You come
down here, and shove plane, and hammer
a shOe-last, and break cobblestones, and
earn an honest living as do, instead of sit
ting there in idleness scribblingr' But
God knows that there are no harder
worked men in all the earth than the news
paper people of this country. 1t is not a
matter of hard times; it is characteristic of
all times. Men have better appreciation
for that which appeals to the stomach than
for. that which appeals to the brain. They
have no idea of the immense financial and
intellectual exhaustions of the newspaper
press. They grumble because they have to
pay five cents a copy, and wish they had
only to pay three. or paying three, they wish
they had only to pay one. While there are
few exceptions-and some few do make
large fortunes-the vast majority of news
paper people in this day have struggle for
livelihood; and if in their hardship and exas-
peration they sometimes write things they
ought not to write, let these facts be an
! alleviation. 0, men of the press it will be
great help to you if, when you come home
late at night, tagged out and nervous with
your work, you would just kneel down and
commend your case to God, who has watch
ed all the fatigue of those days, and who
has promised to be your God and the God
of your children forever.
| Another great trial OF the newspaper pro-
fession is the diseased appetite for I'M
healthy intelligence. You blame the news
paper press for giving such prominence to
murders and scandals. Do you suppose
that so many papers would give prominence
to these things if the people did not demand
them? go into the meat market of a for
eign city, and find that the butchers hang
up on the most conspicuous hooks meat
that is tainted, while the meat that is fresh
and savory is put away without any special
care. l come to the conclusion that the
people ofthat city love tainted meat. You
know very well that if the great mass OF
people in this country get hold Of a news
paper, and there are in it no runaway
matches. no broken-up families, no defam-
alton of men in high position, they pro-
nounce the paper insipid. They say, '1t
is shockingly dull tonight" I believe it is
one of the trials of the newspaper press that
the people of this country demand moral
slush instead of healthful, intellectual food.
Now, you are respectable man, an intelli-
gent man, and paper comes into your
hand. You open it, and there are three
columns of splendidly written editorial, rec