Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1888-01-27
GIVING THEIR EXPERIENCE.
BY WILL CARLETON.

together along one Of the great iron
turnpikes Of the nineteenth century.
They were for the time being free from
care, and appeared to be enjoying them
selves, embarrassed by any demands Of
the devil for copy. They had exhausted
the delights and vexations of euchre
and whist, and fell to talking over some
Of their editorial experiences. The
conversation turned upon the different
adventures which these protectors Of
the reading public had undergone with
wOuld-be contributors.
al have no doubt" said one Of them,
shat 1 have hundreds of subscribers
who think they could write a whole
paper every day, as good as / am giving
them. Indeed, many have as bad as
told me so. In a large number OF the
minds of humanity the reading Of an
able article creates q desire 60 write
one, the desire hardens into a resolve,
and very often the resolve into an at
tempt Then they come to US and
want it typed as George Francis Train
would say.
"Ths worst class Of these volunteer
contributors that 1 have had to deal
with is a lot OF nice, good old gentlemen
who have retired from business on a
cOmpe tency, and have very little to do
nowadays except to help regulate the
affairs of those who are still at work.
They naturally feel that a good many
things are going wrong IN the world,
and what is a newspaper for if not to
get things right? So they put their
views into essays Of greater or less
length, pen them in very nice, prime,
Old-fashioned hand, sign them .Neritas,'
Fair Play 'Vigiiitas,' Subscriber
"A Reader OF Your Valuable Paper
One Who Knows "A Sufferer "A
Public Protector or something of that
kind, and then bring their long COM
munications to me, and are angry, or,
worse still. grieved, if do not give them
the entire facilities of the establish
ment They write on all sorts of sub
jects, from the Presidents latest lour-
ney to the musical facilities of their
neighbours cats in the night One old
gentleman wanted me to publish his
autobiography by installments; ard
after that his wife's and after that all
his childreu's. None of them had ever
been outside the county where they
lived, and, as you may surmise, the
manuscript was not wildly exciting.
he was very much put cut when de-
clined the article with thanks and
fina' ly resolved to publish it in book.
"Ihe funeral reporter was the worst
case 1 ever had. said another editor.
"She was a mildle-aged lady, who
never missed q funeral; I used to Won
der if she didn't sometimes get impa-
tient waiting for her own. Only she
could not write that upg She brought
me a two-co.umu account Of every
funeral she attended, which 1 had to
condense and publish to please her and
not offend the friends Of the deceased
III H.H 4. u. 3 =
my whole paper into a literary ceme-
terry. She cared nothing for accuracy
as long as she could fill space. She
threw wrearhs of praise indiscrimi-
nately upon every bier. If the dead
man had no virtues, she invented some
for him, and went right ahead She
badgered everybody in the Office wild
with her mortuary scribblings, and
came very near being the death of me,
IN which case shs would no doubt have
written my own obituary with her usual
placid sort of pleasure. Finally re-
stricted her to four lines per corpse,
and she deserted me in a huff aud went
and contributed to the deaths and death
Of rival paper.
"she was not so wearying," said an
other editor, "as the pretty young
pOetess who used to glide dainty into
my dusty sanctum, with a sweet smile
on her face and an immense bundle OF
dIggerel I'm ler her arm. If she could
have put as much taste and talent into
her articles as she did into her atti-
tudes and dresses, SapphO would have
been nowhere. Her voice, too, was
eharning-her manner bewildering-
everything about her was tiptop, sx-
cept her poetry. The rhymes were
bad, the measure hmp!d and jumped
and kicked over the traces of any
metrical harness that ever was con.
structed. The sentiment was stuff that
she never would have thought Of airing
in prose, for she was a good CONVERSE
Jionai and sensible enough till she
got into the poetic frenzy.
81 spent hours with her In the semi
seclusion Of my sanctum trying to con
vince her that violet did not rhyme
with twilight or blossom with mucl
of anything except 'O'pOssum,' and tina
one Of the requisites of n good POetica
line was a certain regular number o
feet; she would stamp one of her owl
shapeIy ones and insist upon it that
could edit stories and advertisements
but knew nothing about the afiatus in
dustry. And so 1 went on admiring he
more and her poetry lees every day III
til, overlooking her netrical infirmities
I came very near marrying her-that Is
PROPOSED sau she rejected me
poem OF sixteen stanZas. She hnall
united in the holy bonds OF matrimon
with tinsmith, and, 1 hope, gives hiI
sonnets on toast every morning"
"a nice but determined old lady wit
an epic poem on the subject of Noa
and his adventure was the worst of m
troubles for long time, said anothe
editor. "She came in on the cars fro1
the country one day, and asked me If
would like to see the poem. I replies
--Vith i'll atarred pOiiteuess, Certainly
and asked her how much there was c
It She replied about ten pounds, sh
guessed. ste Irod ont mo the hall An
brought me the article. crammed int
one OF those old fashioned oil-clot
valises She stated that her HAND
writing was not very good and though
she had better read it aloud, an
actually commenced giving me Ii
whole affair, done mp in quatrains. NJ
having time or nerve to listen to it thel
L unhappily told her to leave it, and
would look it over with a view to in
mediate publication if it proved worth,
She wrote me almost every day Il
two months in a terrible unreadab
hand, aud gave me the reputation in I'll
Office Of receiving love letters fro
somebody. When tried TO explain d
showing the let ers and the manuscript
nobody could read either, and was Il
some time under a cloud of ridicu.
from my fellow editors
II was just about to bundle mp til
whole business aud send it back to IN
good old lady friend by express. whe
there came a little blaze in our Ofic
and destroyed among many other va
uable things. the oilcloth satchal lib