The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-08-15
4 JOURNALISTIC HAoK.
Confessions of His Experienoe-A Warn
 i'g to Young WOuld-be Writers.
TFrom inc Now York Evening Po't.l

 author, "The Confessions of a. Literary Hack" in the July Forum, will un- doubtedly have the effect of attracting many people to a profession greatly overcrowded, and of renewing hope in the breasts of beginners who have al- ready experienced some of the disap- pointments of a writer's work, The conclusions of the writer that his life has been a failure, financially and oth- erwise, will not impress enthusiastic beginners in the field of journalism and literature very foreibly, With the alluring prospects of an average salary of five thousand dollars year for wri- ting articles, stories and poems for the magazines and newspapers, hundreds of moderately gifted hack writers" would abandon all other pursuits to en- ter upon lifelong service in the field of literature. It is unfortunate that the successful writer who averages annual ly the salary paid to congressman should look upon his career as failure. He can rest assured that he does not represent the average hack" on the contrary, the majority must be content with less than half the income he thinks so small.
 am thirty years of age, and have worked ten years in New York as ia journalist hack" I do not say "a lite rary hack" for I am not entitled to that term. I average two thousand dollars year, and I believe that l am neither above nor below the average hack" writer who enjoys no particular "pull' upon a periodical, My expe- riences have taught me that the chances for the hack" writer to make four or five thousand dollars Qndepen- dent of editorial positions) are very slim. Even the editorial positions worth five thousand dollars year are very few and hard to find. There are thirty-five thousand persons in the Uni ted States engaged in editorial work upon daily and weekly, newspapers, This is the report of the labor organi- zations. More than half this number more properly belong in the list of news gatherers, a class whose services com mand only from ten to thirty-five dol lars per week. The free lance" in Journalism and literature does not have a regular salary, and it is consequently more difficult to find out what he makes. As rule the Bohemian who sends his wares around from paper to paper has more gifts than his salaried brother He has many things to contend with that the reporter or editor never dreams of His assignments are not made out for him. He must suggest and find his own subjects, and then hunt up a mar ket for them. The latter he does not always find.
 I served an apprenticeship of one year as reporter on a, New York daily The night work nearly ruined my health, and the compensation barely paid my board bills5and clothed me de- gently. I was twenty years of age then. With no one dependent upon me, found journalism cohgenial enough for a time; but the monotonous routine of writing up meetings, interviews and ac- counts of fires, burglaries, etc, soon be- gan to pail upon my mind. I longed for some more am bilious work, I tried a short article of a. more pretentious char acter, and had the satisfaction of seeing it printed in a prominent weekly with my signature attached. Next followed a short story, for which I received if teen dollars. Two or three similar sue cesses turned me permanently into the line of work I have followed ever since
 I left the daily paper and devoted my self to writing stories. articles, and New York letters for whatever publication could find willing to buy them. I man. aged to get weekly letter in a Phila- delphia paper, but these never netted me more than five dollars each. I con- trived to live on four hundred dollars the first year of my sad experience as an independent writer; but I was en- couraged to continue in my work by reading stray articles in the press about the big prices paid to authors. These articles, I believe, are the most harmful of any class published under the head. ing of Literary Notes" Many ot them are erroneous and the others are frequently written in such a way as tc give the readers the impression that fortunes are easily made in literature A great many sad failures in journal ism and literature slipped their frs wine of delusion" in this way.
 At twenty-three I finished my frs novel and year later it was published serially in New York Sunday paper I received one hundred dollars for the serial copyright, and two years later sold the book copyright for twenty-five dollars The book has not yet beer published, although the publishers as sure me that it will be brought out as soon as business is better. But tht most encouraging feature of this ven tllre at the time was the unstintet praise the paper in question gave to the story. I had the satisfaction of seeing placards in the morning papers, stat ing that "a new genius had suddenly appeared upon the literary horizon;' that "the great American novelist hat at last appeared' The following Sun day the paper announced in long edi torial that the first instalment of tht story had increased the circulation O the paper five thousand. Think of it My one hundred dollar story had at tracted readers by the thousand!
 Can any one wonder that I imagined my fame was established, when the pa per publishing the story had over ont hundred thousand subscribers, and hat been printing the work of the best liv ing authors? I was conceited enough tC believe so, and my friends assured mt that it must be-true. I forthwith be gan another serial, and when it wa,