San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1886-08-28
The Scared Ethiopian

Last evening DR.. K. i. Graves re-
ceived Information that a young cOlored
boy named Washington was lying at the
point of death from commissions in the
county Jail, and he armed himself with
certain Ofiicinal remedies and proceeded
to the Jail where he found the boy laid
out and apparently dead. The doctor
at once sized the case, and placing some
strong hartshOrn below the nasal of the
organ of Washington, the Ethiopian soon
showed that he was not dead by a long
site. Washington was soon GONZALES
cent, and accounted for his condition by
saying that Mexican had hit him over
the head. "Well," said DR.. X. l.. Graves,
"You must take this mixture and be-
have yourself or you'll wake up in hades
in the morning" The Ethiopian, who
by the way was only subject to fits, was
terribly scared and is behaving himself
awful good to evade the threatened eter-
nal fires.
Something About the Work of Reporters.
The labors, difficulties and troubles
undergone and encountered by reporters
for newspapers in discovering and stiff
ing the items of news over which the
reader poses with so much interest, are
not even dreamed of by one reader out
of an hundred. The truth is the report
er's work Is wOefully moderated by
nine-tenths OF the readers of newspa-
pers, the common impression being that
such work is exceedingly easy and per-
functory. But this impression has no
foundation. The reporter has first to
obtain a hint of something that has
taken place, this hint is very often vague
and enigmatical, and then he has to I'M
ravel the tangled skein of the atfair-to
sift the facts after he has pieced them
to.gethsr-to weigh the evidence and to
eliminate the truth from a mass of dis
jointed and contradictory statements
and vague hints. 1t is miracle that
reporters make as few and as trifiing
mistakes as they do, and yet IL is one Of
the hardships incident to their profess
sion that should they happen to make
trivial mistake it is sit down to a sinister
motive and great hellabaloo is raised
over it. No amount of carefulness and
conscientiousness on the part of report
ers will prevent them from sometimes
making mistakes, yet the world takes
no thought of this difficulty.
The newspaper reporter, while SILENT
ly prosecuting his quiet search Tor news
and attempting to lay hold of a clew out
OF a Creton labyrinth of purposed mys-
LITIGATION and involment, has unearthed
more fraud, corruption and crime than
all the detectives In the union, yet even
while 1t reaps the benefit Of his work in
this matter, the world accords the re-
porter no credit for what he has achieved
in the exposure of fraud, corruption and
crime, in high and low places-in slums
and in palaces
His very personality is merged in that
nft ha fnr xkhi ha thnt
brilliant reporter after q quarter of a
century OF hard work. realizes that
while the paper has made both reputa-
ton and money, he himself is not known
outside of the printing Office and a small
circle CT personal friends. The editor
achieves national reputation, is court
ed and caressed by aspirants to public
Office, and men in power-is big spoke
in the wheel Of his party, and is often
elected or appointed to honorable offices
every reader Of newspaper feels as If
he knew the editor personally and was
upon excellent terms with him, but the
reporter is merged in the paper on
which he is employed, and to the public
has no existence outside of the paper.
The newspapers Of fifty years ago em-
ployed no reporters, and, consequently,
contained little or no local news except
a meagre paragraph, now q newspaper
is sought and priced for its fullness of
local news far more than for its political
leaders. A complete revolution has
taken place in the conduct and in the
contents Of newspapers, and it is now
literally true that a newspaper is a
mirror Of the times. One can remain for
m onths in the seclusion OF his own
room, yet learn from the columns of his
newspaper everything that happens in
his town or city.