The herald., 1895-02-10

SAOCAs PCis hC bdily PdPSA ~ -
part of modern existence. 1t
has played its part in making civilized life
what it is today. If you are pessimist
and curse civilization, the daily newspa-
per readily falls under your ban. Often
those who are not pessimists have faults
to find-with more or less justice-with
the morning paper. And indeed it is not
a perfect production. If it were, the mil
lennium would be at hand Yet with all
its imperfections, you would not care to
be without it. Your morning coffee
would be less a solace than it is, were 1t
not seasoned with the morning paper.
Would you 60 the rounds of the clock
in the mechanism of great daily paper?
Would you know something OF the inner
workings of an organism that is to a
large extent the intelligence of the body
polite? Where shall we start? Name
any hour of the twenty-four. There
is always some part of the great machin-
cry in active motion. Well, then, eight
O'Clock in the morning, let it be.
VIII
The nights work is done and the days
work is beginning. There is stir in
the business office. Most of the clerks
are on hand in their places and the cash
Ter is expected almost any moment The
visitors begin to arrive, the countless
number of people who have to do with
the business office of the daily paper. The
man who has lost his dog the night be-
fore wants to advertise for it in tomor-
rows paper. The family that has changed
its residence wants the paper left
at the new address. The business
man who wants a new clerk has small
ad for insertion. A large force of clerks
is required to a minister to all the wants
of those who come to the business office.
And some of them do not come. The
mails carry thousands of their messages,
and the telephone and telegraph wires are
burdened constantly with tidings that 60
between the business Office and the bust
ness patrons of the great daily newspaper.
TX
The typewriters in the business office
are clicking, pens are scratching and
there is a consultation in the Business
Managers private Office Perhaps it is
with a big advertiser or perhaps it is
with some one who has fault to find with
this or that detail of the business man
agement. Smith wants fifty extra papers.
Perhaps Miss Brown has Spring poem
to offer the Editor, and through ignor-
ance, she takes it to the business office.
The polite clerk tells her the editorial de-
partment will not be open until one
o'clock in the afternoon, and if he is a
wise clerk he will advise her to send her
poem to the editor through the mails.
And so this hour goes on, each moment
of it pregnant with results for the bust
ness part of the next mornings issue.
X
Note now the first sign of activity in
the local editorial department. The Com
mercial man is at his desk. He looks
over the mornings papers, glances at a
few exchanges, notes the contents of the
current price circulars. Then he is up
and off on his rounds. He goes to the
Clearing House, he goes to the stock
markets and produce centers. He goes
out ION change" and on the street"
His work has fairly commenced. The
court man, and the man who reports the
doings at the City Hall have gone to their
posts. The city is awake, business, the
law courts and the civil authorities are
hard at work and the moments slip by
unnoticed.
The City Editor is in bed rubbing his
eyes and trying to decide whether it is
really time for him to get up. The News
Editor and Managing Editor are both
still dead to the world. Only the bust
ness Office and three members of the local
staff are fully awake and hard at work
Additional mails have brought addition
al labors to the clerical force in the bust
ness Office. If the day is a good one
an extra page of advertising has been
contracted for by this time and several of
the outside agents have increased their
orders for extra copies.
XII
Already there have been several visitors
at the editorial rooms ,and they have
wondered at the silence and emptiness
they have found there. At this hour,
however, there are dozen men and
women with grievances, suggestions and
contributions waiting in the ante-room
to see the editor, who is at this moment
enjoying his coffee. This is the noon
luncheon hour for some, the breakfast
hour for others-the one dull hour of the
day in the newspaper mechanism.
Now the City Editor is at his 20 st.
has been there in fact for a quarter
of an hour or more if he is not tardv.
and the local room is wide awake, though
possibly some of its occupants are still
ruhhinp their ewes One oicIook iS +ba