The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-06-30
kIPLING IN INDIA.
"Reminiscences by Brother Editor.
 (FrOm McClurc's MauaZineO

"Reminiscences by Brother Editor. (rrom McClures Magazine.)
 Journalism in India. is uncommonly l hard labor for the few Englishmen who constitute an editorial staff; and with
 the greatest dislike of using a razor to
 cut grindstones, I could not help bur- dening Kipling with a good deal of
 daily drudgery. My experience of him
 as a newspaper hack suggests, howev-
 CT, that if you want to find man who will Cheerfully do the office work of three men, you should catch young genius Like blood horse between the shafts of coal wagon, he may go
 near to bursting his heart in the effort, but he'll drag that wagon along as it ought to go. The. amount of stuff that Kipling got through in the day
 was indeed wonderful, and though I had more or less satisfactory assistants after he left, and the staff grew with the papers prosperity, l am sure that
 more solid work was done In that office
 when Kipling and I worked together than ever before or after.
 There was one peculiarity of Kip
 lings work which I really must men tion, namely, the amount of ink he used to throw about Tn the heat of summer white cotton trousers and a thin vest constituted his office attire,
 and by the days end he was spotted all
 over like Dalmation dog. He had a
 habit of dipping his pen frequently and deep into the ink pot, and as all his movements were abrupt, almost jerky, l1n ta1 into my room, as he used to do about one thing or another in connection with the contents of the paper a dozen times in the morning, l had to shout to him to stand off," otherwise, as I knew by experience the abrupt halt he 1 would make, and the flourish with which he placed the proof in his hand before me, would send the penful of ink-he always had full pen in his hand-fying over me. Driving or sometimes walking home to breakfast in his light attire plentifully besprink- led with ink his spectacled face peep ing out under ar enormous, mushroom shaped pith hat, Kipling was quaint looking object This was in hot weather. when Lahore lay blistering month after month under the sun, and every white woman and half of the
 white men had fled to cooler attitudes in the Himalayas, and only those men
 were left who, like Kipling and myself.
 had to stay. So it mattered little in
 what costume we went to and from the office. In the winter, when society," l had returned to Lahore, Kipling was
 rather scrupulous in the matter of
 dress. but his lavishness in the matter ! of ink changed not with the seasons.
 He was always the best of good com pany. bubbling over with delightful ! humor, which found vent in every de- 1 tail of our days work together: and ! the chance visitor to the editors office
 must often have carried away very CT | roneous notions of the amount of work which was being done when he found
 us in the fits of laughter which usually accompanied our consultations about i the makeup of the paper. This is my 1 chief recollection of Kipling as assist | ant and companion. And I would 1 place sensitiveness as his second char acterstic.
 l For a mind thus highly strung the plains of India in the hot weather
 make a bad abiding place; and many
 of Kipling's occasional verses and pas sages in the Indian stories tell us how
 deep he drank at times of the bitter
 ness of the dry cup that rises to the | lips of the Englishman in India in the scorching heat of the sleeplesS Indian night. In the dregs of that cup lies
 madness; and the keener the intellect
 end the more tense the sensibilities, l the greater the danger. I suffered lit ! tie in the hot weather day or night; and yet Kipling, who suffered much at
 times, willingly went through trials in
 pursuit of his art which nothing would have induced me to undergo. His l City of Dreadful Night" was no fancy | sketch, but a picture burned into his | brain during the suffocating night ! hours that he spent exploring the Teek- 1 ing dens of opium and vice in the
 worst quarters of the native city of
 Lahore: while his City of Two 1 Creeds' was another picture of Lahore from the life-and the death--when he watched a Mussulman and Hindoo ! spending the midnight hours in mutual l butchery.
 ] While possessing a marvellous faculty for assimilating local color without ap- parent effort. Kipling neglected no chance and spared no labor in acquir- ing experience that might serve a, lite rary purpose. Of the various races of India, whom the ordinary Englishman Jumps together as natives" Kipling knew the quaintest details respecting
 habits, language and distinctive ways of thought. I remember well one long, limbeds Pathan. indescribably filthy,