St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1886-01-21
THE EDITOR WAS MAD.

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not far away, who was struggling for
livelihood with all his energies. H
worked hard all day and he sometime
worked far into the night, in a cOnsci
entious endeavOr to make his pape
worthy of the town. 1t was sometime,
hard to pay the printers when Satur-
day night came, and it did beat all how
often his paper bills and Office rem
came due, but he manfully struggled
along, content, as most editors are
with the approval of his own conscience
and barely successful effort to keel
the wolf from climbing into his up.
stairs tenement. He was q kind-heart-
ed chap, and so, when richly clad la.
dies with smiling faces occasionally
frightened his sanctum with their pres :
ence, and besOught his aid in making
folks believe that their church festival
next week was the most important
ever held, he was rejoiced with the
thought that he could be of some SER
vice, and he wrote. and he wrote. Lord
how he would boom things.
And when, in over thousand fami-
lies, his paper was read, and read, and
the father and mother and daughter
would say, "Oh, that'll be splendid
entertainment in the new church next
week, for the Peoples Advocate says
so, and l guess we had all better go,
his heart grew warm within him i; and
when he saw the people tlocking into
the church, their steps turned thither
by the enthusiastic words he had writ
ten, his heart felt warmer than ever,
for he felt that, no matter how poor
and of little consequence he seemed to
be, he really exercised mightier in
fiuence and did more good than any
preach Ell or any one else in town.
But one day, when he was racking
his weary brain for an idea how to
meet his next paper bill, the richly clad
ladies again entered his sanctum, more
smiling than ever, and said: "Oh, Mr..
Jones, we made over 5000 by our festi-
val, and we know that it was success
full because you helped it along so nice
ly in your paper. You got everybody
interested. Now, won't you put in a
little card of thanks telling the public
how grateful the committee are?" The
editor wrote the card of thanks and
then said, 81 suppose You want this
put in with the other cards. 1t will
cost only 81" Well, you ought to see
those ladies grow cool. "What Pay a
dollar just for saying that Why, Mr..
Jones, we didn't think you were going
to charge anything for that. Well,
here's your dollar, but we don't think
we shall be in hurry to bring you in
items if you're going to charge for
them" And they fiounced out of the
door, mad as could be, and they talked
about that mean editor until he would
have blushed, could he have heard
them, and the cOnceit would have all
been knocked out of him.
But when he got to thinking it all
over, and began to estimate the num-
Der of boOms he had started and the
money he had made-fOr other people,
while it still remained a problem how
that paper bill was to be paid, he just
let his dander rise and his back bone
stiffen until he ached to have some
body come in and ask him for "puff."
Just then a man dropped in and ex-
tended his hand and a five cent cigar.
"JOnesy, my boy" he said, "Our lodge
has decided to have a concert in order
to raise money for a new carpet and to
furnish the lodge room. We've engag
ed Miss Thursday, the great singer,
and we want things whoOped up. I've
brought along a lot of notices she's re-
ceived from other papers, and you can
scatter them through your paper in the
local columns. It'll make interesting
reading and it'll help to fill up, you
know, and Pll see that you have free
ticket. 1t shan't cost you anything to
attend. And | want yOn to write it up
big-give us bully report of the
thing"
Then you ought to see the lines
harden around the editors mouth
"Oh, shouldn't think you'd want any
thing in the Advocate" he said, cit
wont help you any to publish all that
stuff. Get few handbills printed and
throw them around the town."
"But it a1iW help us, Mr.. Jones. Of
course we shall have some handbills
printed, but they won't do us any good
compared with your paper. Every
body in town reads thai, land you know
yourself that people are influenced by
what they read in a paper. Why, if
the paper don't boom it folks wouldn't
think it amounted to anything"
"Then l suppose you are going to
put in an advertisement about the con-
cert?"
emo, we hadn't thought of that.
We have got to run it as cheap as we
can and make all the money we can,
because it's for the benefit of the lodge.
How much will an advertisement COST"
give dollars"
"What! Five dollars9 Why, Jones,
we've got to pay that for printing and
distributing the handbills. / shouldn't
think you'd charge us for printing
these notices which will help you just
so much toward filling your paper. I
thought you were glad to get items"
| CHOW look here Mr. Smith . said