San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-07-26
THE COUNTRY EDITOR.
A CITY PAPERS DESCRIPTION PART
" TRUE AND PARTLY NOT.

No Man Works Harder for Small Reward
Than Hs-He Must Know Everybody
and All the County's Afairs-But There
Is a Bright Side TO His Lot.
There must be place of future rewards,
otherwise the publisher of a country news
paper would be done an injustice. The coun-
try editor can get into more scrapes without
meaning to do it, and can get out of them
without knowing how he did it, than any one
now known to fame. He can get up earlier
in the morning and stay up later at night; he
can give more free show advertising for the
privilege of being called a deadhead when he
goes to see how hard he has lied, and he can
pay out more money for running expenses
and get less returns in available cash than
anybody not magician.
The editor of country paper can keep the
press waiting longer to get in four line adj
vertisement for some man who intends en-
barking in the business Of hedge trim
ming, and yet start the press in better
time to catch the train running to supply
four subscribers in Stump Town, than any
other man ON earth, unless it be the edisor Of
some other country paper. He can wear q
hat longer and a coat shorter than most peo-
pie, and he has to do this In order to keep an
advertiser who wants to pay in goods. He
can go all summer without shining his shoes,
and he is expected to do 50 or be called stuck
up" by the people who edit his torch of pro-
greSs for him He can bear with meekness
the assaults of the collector of bills, the raids
of the peddler of books, the charge of the
patent medicine man from the city and the
visits from the cashier who holds his accept
ance.
He can stand it to be cursed for his unclassi-
fed idiocy by every magnate in the town,
and then, when Iris slanderers die, can write
elegies like ''jewels, five words long, that on
the stretched forefnger of all time sparkle
forever" He can do all this and raise big
family, each year seeing the second boy in
cased in the trousers the first has outgrown:
each year seeing the girls go to meeting in a
last summers hat because it is cheaper than
when the fashion was young. And when the
editor has tried for the last time to make 81
keep the promise made for three, he can die
as easily and be buried as cheaply, and for
gotten as quickly, as any vagrant that ever
craved drink.
SOME OF HIS TRIALS.
When the country editor washes the roller
on Saturday night and locks the office door by
DOA vi plates dSdlIlSU IL ue Is lue
most thankful of mortals He is glad to be
alive; glad he got through a week when he
hardly expected to; glad things have been no
worse than they were, and glad to look for
ward to a whole day of idleness. Yet he must
go to church, for the sewing circle will not
consider it proper for man to conduct that
lever of enlghtenment-the press-unless he
has the appearance of piety. But if he goes
70 baar tba Ma+boJiS%
say he is partial. He is expected to contribute
good hard cash to every scheme projected by
the brethren and sisters, clerical or Law, in or
OFT of church, and then he can boom the bare
faced fraud las a matter of news" Sunday
night, when he lays away his boiled shirt for
next Lords day, he feels the approach of
Monday with a sort of dread.
He goes to sleep with AN intuition that
some man will be in to cuss him about some
item in last weeks paper-has no idea which
one-and dreams that he tried to run away,
and couldn't possibly do it. When he goes to
the Office Monday he finds the roller has fallen
down in the lye jar and is ruined, and he will
have to buy new one; the boys have climbed
in through window and mashed the only
font of script trying to print visiting cards
for their girls, and some clumsy meddler has
P+N NAiS NtioS Vi LlC iOutSNl.
BY the tire he gets these little things
Strengthened up cash subscriber comes in
and disconttnues his paper because no notice
was made of his wooden wedding. Then a
boy comes in and orders Josh Hih's paper
stopped on general principles, and the fact
that some three years subscription stands I'M
liquidated ON the books does not seem to dis
turb Josh in the least. Various other male
dictions from unexpected sources, both be-
cause of what he didn't do and because of
what he did, are hurled at the editor during
the forenoon, and then he is ready for work,
still grateful that his miserable life is spared.
He is business manager, solicitor, reporter,
editor and prootreader, and besides he does
whatever general work the rest of the force
leaves undone. He takes a pride in telling
the patrons of his sheet that he can run oil
the edition" quicker than any man he ever
hired, and when it comes to setting type he
doesn't take a back seat for any Of EN-
the OTHER SIDE.
But long hours, heavy work, inadequate
compensation and abuudaHt cussing are not
alone the Lot of UlD rural i,rtrnalLzf IA A.