, 1892-01-08
THEY WANTTOWRITE
CONSEQUENTLY THE GIRLS ALL
GO TO NEW YORK.

FInd-FIfty Applicants for Every Va
rant P~lace-BegIn at Home.
Copyright, 1892, by American Press Assocta-
toni
New YORK, Jan. eff you are a wom-
an and have any idea of coming to New
York to write for newspapers-don't do
it. That, briefly, is the best recon-
mendation anybody can give you. I'm
less you have a liked contract befone
You come that you are to occupy a GER
tain place at a certain price, shun New
York as You would shun purgatory as a
locality in which to initiate journalistic
experiments. One managing editor l
know of sees from five to fifty applicants
a week for the chance to write Just
enough to pay a few days board, per-
1aps even a nights lodging, or a dinner
for a stomach that has not known n
good square meal sometimes in several
days. He gives them one and all the
advice | have so generously offered at
the head of this column. They are not
grateful to him for the recommendation,
however. They say with a face and
voice quite the reverse of grateful, "Oh,
yes, You have come to New York and
succeeded yourself, and now you are
like all the rest; you are trying to keep
other people out of the profession"
Then the managing editor answers only,
Very well; try it."
They do try it. Yesterday the man
aging editor gave one of these aspiring
individuals who had tried it a dollar to
get him out of town. Try it, by all
means, do!
a Z nTaEnnf fhnTa IL a fTaTnnn1nT1G tidal
wave of young women pouring into New
York from all parts of the Union. Some
of them have had neat little successes on
country newspapers and wish to try
their wings in a metropolitan flight.
Others, heaven help them! know no
more about newspaper writing than
some politicians know about the golden
rule. Two-thirds of them cannot even
write correctly, yet they somehow fancy
they have only to come TO New York,
pen a little screed about how New York
girls pinch their waists and paint their
faces, and the writer will swim into
print upon a wave of glory at ten dollars
n column and settle down in an expen-
sive fat and go into social high life in
New York city. Not one in 100 of these
poor girls succeeds. The fate of some
'haN NSAAS ~ 4 w iAob thlo ~ Illll
about. The rest stay till they AVE
spent all their money, and then borrow
or beg enough to take them back home
again. Lucky they are if they nave
homes to go back to.
To begin, these poor girls have no
idea of the preparation required for the
true journalist. When a candidate APP
plies for a place on the London Times
hn 10 taRan into N rnprn arA ,n.staI -,
sit down before a table. Upon the table
are zen, ink and paper. A subject is
then given to him and he is told to make
an article out of it, editorial or other
wise, as the case may be. Not a book
or paper is allowed in the ROOM, and
there, without a ray to guide him be-
yond the light of knowledge and logic
that shines from his own brain, the can
didate is expected to construct an article
good enough to priat in the London
Times. How many of the Thousands of
girls that think themselves qualified to
instruct the public as journalists could
do this2 Yet it is nothing more than any
all round journalist ought to be able
to do.
Years of preparation are required to
maxi a woman a successful physician,
INV II lttCIltI, "a lIoLt Vi eftn IL ROOI
milliner, dressmaker or cook. How,
then, can a crude, ignorant girl, with no
knowledge of the world, no knowledge
of current literature, art, politics, his
tory, social, ethical and economic ques-
tons presume to think herself capable
of writing for the press that which will
be helpful to humanity? 1t is a mystery.
and an inexplicable one. Do you know
,-l,| "a 5000, - H.
cessful journalist? 1t means that You
must read a good newspaper all through
every day and keep Yourself en- rapport
with the things that interest mankind.
You must know about the political his
tory and government of your w and
other countries. You must know tho
merits of the labor question, the social
ist question, the single tax question, the
woman question.
You must be thoroughly up on mod
ern sanitation and hygiene. The great
field of invention, science and discovery
lies before you. Enter it and CLEAN
from it constantly all that the reading
world will value. Literary lights-a
Tolstoi or Rudyard Kipling-fash across
the armament. A wonderful dramatic
genius, perhaps that greatest of all liv-
ing WOMEN, oardn bernnaruU, appears.
New doctrines, cranky or otherwise; the
mind cure, theosophy, Delsartism, loom
upon the horizon of mems thought. All
these you must follow up and be able
to write intelligently about. Nay, if you
were called to report the United States
armor tests at Indian Head, you ought TO
be SO trained that you would know how
to get in half an hours time the technic-
al knowledge and terms required to do
it Understandings. l know several
women journalists who can do all that |
ave named and more. Besides this,
too, a woman is expected to know about
dress, fashions and society, and have a
whole cookery book in her head as well.
The journalist is the teacher of man.
kind in our time. He or she, more than
any other person alive, needs to be an
encyclopedia of knowledge. The jour
palist who is in love with her work takes
pride in making every sentence "a model
H good, clear English. She trims it as