Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-11-15
CLIPPING FOR CASH.
Remarkable Growth of the Bureaus
That Watch Newspapers.
THEY ARE GREAT LABOR SAVERS.
One Pair Of Eyes Can DO the Searching for
Thousand Others.
BUSINESS MEN ARE THE PATRONS

| CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DrsPArCH.1
NEW YORK, Nov. 14-The demands Of
business and the general process of evolu.
tio' bring out queer combinations Some
ingenious fellow starts scheme and works
up paying clientele; another sharp fellow
improves upon it and score of other fel.
lows take it up on larger scale. In year
or two 1t becomes part of our business
system, is accepted as matter of course,
and if anybody thinks about it at all it is
to wonder how things went on so long with
out it.
This idea struck me forcibly the other
day while looking into one of the "clipping
bureaus" down town. A number of girls
were seated at as many reading stands
skimming the newspapers, marking para
graphs, turning and skipping and rustling
among the leaves that have blown in from
nimbled figured girls are doing the reading
professionally for people who are too busy
to do it for themselves, and they are doing
tia good deal more thoroughly and ex-
haustlvely than any one man could possibly
do even if every day contained 4S working
hours and he hadn't anything else requiring
| attention.
The Labor Saving Movement.
The evolution of the clipping bureau is,
on different scale, similar to that of
stenography, typewriting and other labor
saving devices in professional life. The
advanced modern idea of commercial and
professional life is the greatest personal at
tention to details with the very smallest
expenditure of time and labor Toincrease
the enumber of your eyes and ears and hands
! fonf fNr h1e .%l
necessary physical or mental taxation is one
! OF the secrets of success.
'The mental processes have no natural
relation to the physical exertion of skill
necessary to reduce them to practical use, I"
said an eminent author and publicst to me
some years ago. 'The world is full of men
| whose strength and activity of brain are
wholly out of proportion to their physical
| endowments. There are thousands of will
| ing and capable eyes and hands waiting for
the command of the great directing power.
in the fitting of these human elements each
to each and to the greatest advantage of
the whole. At the head OF all the means
within reach of US to accomplish this stands
tho newspaper press.
Boiling Down tho Newspaper.
But the newspaper press Of his idea meant
ing. or perhaps only weekly paper usually
read by the American. 1t meant the whole
newspaper system. A single newspaper of
this day often means more than any man in
business life can read, much less digest.
The system as q means of information is out
of reach. That is to say, it was out of
reach till some fellow started this clipping
idea. By this scheme you can get from
$500 newspapers every day any inforn1a-
tion contained therein on any particular
subject in which you are interested.
Nearly everybody reads the newspapers
with keen eye for that particular field of
news in which business interests are in
voived. It may be politics, stocks, base
ball, books, produce, bonds or pork or some
thing else. If you could have placed before
you every day the current news on your
particular hobby it would surprise you to
see how many people are writing and talk
ing about it. One of the best results of the
clipping bureau is in relation to public af-
lie opinion. At Washington it has as
sumed greater Importance, for it is there a
means of
Determining Public Policy.
Every governmental movement is usually
commented upon Dy the press, whether it
is as to finance, Indians, lands, foreign af-
fairs, pensions or anything else. Not an
editorial line is written on any of these sub
jects but speedily finds its way through
various sources to the desks of those in au-
thority. Those interested in the personal
ity of politics get every day what is being
said of possible political candidates and
through this means political leaders keep
an hourly hand upon the public pulse.
With the entire newspaper system at COM
mand there is no excuse for errors of judg-
ment as to the country at large.
The extent to which the modern way of
reaching the great newspaper system is
used will astonish those who have given
the subject no attention. There are proba-
bly, dozen clipping bureaus here. and
others in Boston, Washington, Chicago and
San Francisco. They aggregate many thou
sand subscribers The uniform reward for
finding each item is but cents. The uni
form price to- the employe or searcher is q
small fraction of cent. 1 am told at one
place that the search girls get but mill to
2 mills per article found and yet make from
81 to So per day. At the former price the
One Test OF a Good Newspaper.
The number of subscribers and the variety
of subjects being very great this is still |
astonishing. 1t is because of this fact, that |
the variety of subjects covers almost every |
hC"SpnpOi eopiC, 0Lot SUM "oiA 40 POoSiulO |
and paying. When you see q newspaper |
that has been through the clipping bureau |
there is mighty little of it left. And when
you see what is left you will see matter in
which the public generally is not interested |
p .rticularly. The intelligent woman with |
d blue pencil sees things at flash and like |
a flash it is marked for the shears-one,
two, three, four, ten, ffteen-one after an
other until the paper seems to have been
struck by lightning. The greater the
wreck the greater the newspaper.
There are certain subjects in greater de-
mand and hundreds Of newspapers must be
purchased daily to cover them. Supposing,
for instance, the manager here has 80 SUBJ
scribers for inf rmation on a single topic,
Say that topic is located some morning in
The Herald, then the searcher having found
it once finds it 80 times and so copies of
The Herald are necessary to fill the orders.
Mainly for Business Purposes.
The clipping is simply dividing up news
paper information among those who want
it. Twenty-thousand subscribers to single
bureau of clipping sand 20 professional
searchers reading the thousands of daily
for them. Many of these sub
scribers do not receive more than 20 or 80
clippings month, but some big firms and
i