Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1895-12-12


Elgin marbles" from Athens early in
the century-was heard to murmur to
himself on his death bed in 1S41; but
his curiosity was not gratified
/ Robert Louis Stephenson had, like
the prince of Wales, the pleasure
melancholy pleasure, perhaps-of read
ing before his death the good things
the press would write of him when
he was no more.
1T has been a source Of interest and
amusement to me in this island home, .
he once said to a visitor to Samoa, ito
read from time to time my obituary
notices. The news travels so far be-
fore it can be contradiCted that it
often becomes exciting. However, the
climate is so admirable that instead of
furnishing the Journals with interest
ing matter for paragraphs I am likely
to supply my editors with copy for a
considerable time to come"
When the news reached this coun-
try in December of 1894 that the great
novelist was dead it was believed and
hoped by many to be unfounded ru-
NOR, and that once again Mr.. Steven
son would be able to read his obituary
notices. But, alas! the announcement
was only too true.
A still rarer experience is for one
to write ones own obituary for a news
paper. Miss Harriet Martineau, the
celebrated author, who was for many
years a leader writer on the staff of
the Daily News, actually wrote the
obituary which appeared in the issue
of that journal for June 90, 1876, two
days after her death. A more excel
lent or impartial review of her career
could hardly have been produced. She
says she had small imaginative and
suggestive powers, and therefore no
approach to genius, and that "she
could popularize, though she could
neither discover nor invent" This re-
markable obituary, which fills three
and one-half columns of the Daily
News, was published precisely as it
was written in 1855, when the author
and the subject of it felt that her end
was at hand. But she lived for
twenty-one years after, during which
the obituary notice lay in a pigeon
hole in the Daily News office.
But probably the most extraordinary
circumstances in connection with this
subject were two recent libel actions
against London evening papers for
statements contained in obituaries In
one case a man fell from a train in
motion on a Welsh railway and was
killed. There was nothing on his per-
son to lead to his Identification, but
as some sketch books belonging to an
artist connected with a London weekly
illustrated paper were found in an
empty carriage of the train it was pre-
stunned the dead man was the artist
and a telegram to that effect was sent
in the ordinary course, to the London
newspapers.
One of the evening journals pub
lished a sketch of the artists life, in
which it was said that if the deceased
had only had more application and
steadiness he would have attained a
far higher position in illustrated jour-
naliSm. But the artist was not dead
at all; he had simply forgotten his
paraphernalia in the railway carriage,
and, on returning to London, brought
an action against the evening paper
for libel, which he alleged was con-
tanned in it's comment in the obituary
notice. The action was settled out of
court by the payment of substantial
damages.
In the other and more recent case,
the person who complained of being
slandered in an obituary was music
hall artist. The notice of his death
was complimentary to him as a singer,
but it was insinuated that he was an
agent of the Irish-American dyna-
miters, and, as such, frequently tray
/ eled between London, New York and
! Paris. The newspaper in question got
the news from an outside contributor
it was sent, probably, as a stupid or
/ malicious practical joke; but the Hlu-
/ sic hall artist was handsomely COM
pensated for it's publication.
I The obituary writer must be a dill
gent and omnivorous reader of news
papers and magazines and of current
literature, and when he reads he must
always have beside him pencil and
note book, scissors, paste and scrap
books; thanks to my own extensive
scrap books and note books, which
have indeXed on most elaborate
scale, I can turn out at a few hours
notice a biographical sketch from three
to six columns long of any of the
thirty or forty leading men and women
of the day in politics, literature, art or
science. 1t is only by such a system
that full and accurate obituaries can
be written. The public careers of
these distinguished personages are re-
corded from day to day, from week to
week, in the newspapers, and from
month to month in the magazines,
while occasionally glimpses behind the
scenes in their private lives are af-
forded by the autobiographies and
"reminiscences of contemporaries
which form not insignificant part of
current literature; and one needs to
be very alert and very laborious in the
use of pencil and scissors and paste
brush to keep note books and scrap
books fully up to date.
Occasionally men and women spring
suddenly into fame. l may mention
as recent instances Mr.. Crockett and
John Davidson in literature, Mrs. Pat
rick Campbell on the stage ana Mr.
in In Of