St. Paul daily globe., 1886-05-16

| he had fallen in love with a young lady in
moderate circumstances, who had promised
to become his wife when he should consider
| himself in circumstances to warrant such q
step. He never told me of this. but often
spoke of preferring to live in small city.
away from the boys, and where he could
save more money. He had a picture of
young lady that was always on his desk,
and often in the night his ewes
would wander from the manifold" and
look for five minutes on the face, that of
sweet-faced girl, with dark hair and big
eyes. that in the picture seemed deep and
and liquid.
One night. or rather morning for it was
| nearly time for the paper to go to press,
the night editor came in and said: Mr..
, how is the report coming?''
The Western Union ''kid' had lust
brought in the last sheet of copy,
and the telegraph editor replied:
Thirty is in." The night editor
said unless there was something important
kill it, for it was getting late.
My friend with his pencil in his fingers
ran hastily through it and when he reached
the last paragraph stopped short, and for
moment turned as pale as death, while his
pencil dropped from mis- fingers. But he
recovered himself in moment, and in re-
ply to the night editors question, said
wearily: There are two paragraphs-one
on the Beecher trial, and another about
some young lady being struck by lightning
in a town in Louisiana; that's all" ''Send
up the one about Beecher, and kill the
other" said the night editor; nobody in
this part of the country cares d-n about
any young lady being killed 1000 miles
from here-not at this time in the morn
ing"
My friend wrote head for the Beecher
story and put the rest of the manifold pa
per in his pocket. He put on his coat with
tired air and left the Office, passing the
police reporter in the adjoining room with
a brief good night.
Next evening he did not show up at the
usual hour and the night editor swore, for
he had to handle the telegraph himself. 1t
was two days before saw or heard from
my friend, and then I had heard that he
had quit his job and went to his room way
down on Elm street.
Il am not WE'LL" he said. 81 had
to quit night work for while.
I'm about done up. That was about all
he said, and for week. as l made calls on
him it was the same. He got no better,
but said he guessed when he got over bad
cold he would be all right. Two weeks
later he died. A doctor had attended him,
ana said 1t was sort of quick consump-
tion. In his pocket was found
half dozen letters, one which the dead
man had evidently written and neglected to
mail, was directed to Miss Anna E. Gle
ment, New Orleans. was intending to mail
it when l came across. among the papers
found in his pocket, bit of manifold copy
on which was written as near as can re-
member it the following:
New Orleans, S.-During severe thunder
storm sevening lightning struck house Mrs.
E. Clement, No. Carondelet street, and
lady's daughter, Annie. aged 20, instantly
killed.
That evening went down to the office
where the dead man had worked. A new
man was doing the telegraph" and no
body seemed to remember that the dead man
had ever worked them. The picture was
pushed over to the window sill and was
covered with dust. 1t was the pic
ture of Annie, who had been
killed by the bolt that day
that the telegraph editor had quit his desk
forever. The picture with the letters were
mailed to the girls mother. with short
notice of the death, but no one ever told
her that the blow that broke the poor hard
ened newspaper mans heart was the unim-
portant paragraph that the night editor had
ordered killed"