The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1896-04-01

weeklies in the United States and
Canada, there are but 80 half cen.
turv old. Newspapers do not average
more than five years's existence. The
most of them die of cholera infantum.
It IS high time that the people found
out that the most successful way to
sink money and keep it sunk is tc
start newspaper There comes time
when almost every one IS smltten With
the newspaper mania and starts one,
Or have stock in one he must or die.
The course Of procedure Is aoou1
this: \ literary man has an ascicu!
tural or scientific or political or relgl
Gus idea which he wants to venuiate.
He has no money Of his own-llterary
men seldom have-but he talks OF his
ideas among confidential friends un
til they become intlamed with the idea
and forthwith they buy type and press
and rent composing room and gather
corps of editors, and with pros
pectus that proposes to cure everything
the first copy is flung on the attention
of an admiring world. After awhile
one OF the plain stockholders finds
that no great revolution has been ef
fected by this daily or weekly pubiica
ton: that neither sun nor moon stand:
still; that the world goes on lying auc
cheating and stealing just as it did be
fore the first issue. The aforesaid
matter of fact stockholder wants tc
sell out his stock, but nobody wants tc
buy, and other stockholders get in
fected and sick of newspaperdom, anC
an enormous bill at the paper factory
rolls into an avalanche, and the prln
ters refuse to work until back wages
are paid up, and the compositor bows
to the managing editor and the manag
ing editor bows to the editors in chief
and the editor in chief bows to dlrec
tors, and the directors bow to the worlc
at large, and all the subscribers won
der why their papers dosen't come
The world will have to learn that {
newspaper is as much of an institu
ton as the Bank of England Or Yale
college and is not and enterprise. i
you have the aforesaid agricultural OF
religious or political idea to ventilate
you had better charge upon the world
through the columns already estab
lished. 1t is folly for any one who
cannot succeed at tanything else to try
newspaperdom. Ifyou cannot clint
the hill back of your house, it is folly
to try the sides of the Matterhorn.
To publish a newspaper requires the
skill, the precision, the boldness, the
vigilance, the strategy Of comman
der in chief. To edit newspaper re
quires that one be a statesman, an es
sayist, eeographer, statistician and
in acquisition, encyclopedia. Tc
man, to govern, to propel a newspa'
per until it shall be a fixed Institution,
national fact, demands more quail
ties than any business on earth. Ii
you feel like starting any newspaper,
secular or religious, understand that
you are being threatened with soften,
ing of the brain or lunacy, and throw
ing your pocketbook into your wlfes
lap start for some insane asylum before
you do something desperate. Mean
while asthe dead newspapers week at
ter week are carried out to burial all
the living newspapers give respectful
obituary. telling when they were born
and when they died. The best prin-
ters' ink should give at least onestick-
full of epitaph. If it was good paper,
say, Peace to its ashes. If it was a
bad paper, suggest the epitaph writ
ten for Francis Chartreuse: Here
continueth to rot the body Of Francis
Chartrense, who, with an in
flexible constancy and uniformi-
ty of life, persisted in the prac-
tice of every human vice except
ing prodigality and hypocrisy. His
avarice exempted him from
the first, his matchless impudence
from the second" say this because
I want you to know that a good, heal
thy, long lived, entertaining newspa-
per is not an easy blessing, but one
that comes to US through the fire.
First of all, newspapers make know
ledge democratic and for the multi
.ude. The public library is haymow
50 high up that few can reach it, while
the newspaper throws down the for
age to our feet. Public libraries are the
reservoirs where the great floods are
stored high up and away Off. The
newspaper is the tunnel, that brings
them down to the pitchers of all the
people. The chief use of great libra
ries is to make newspapers out of.
Great libraries make a few men and
very wise. Newspapers lift
whole nations into the sunlight. Bet
Ter have $4,000, 900 people moderately
than 100000 solons.
A false impession is abroad that
knowledge is ephemeral
because periodicals are thrown aside,
md not one out Of 10000 people files
hem for future reference. Such
Snowledge, so far from being ephem-
eral, goes into the very structure of the
worlds heart and brain and decides
he destiny of churches and nations.
knowledge on the shelf is Of little
worth. 1t is knowledge afoot, know
ledge harnessed, knowledge revolu-
ion, knowledge winged, knowledge
projected, knowledge thunderbolted.
So far from being ephemeral, nearly
all the best minds and hearts have
heir hands on the printing press to.
lay and have since it got emancipated
Adams and Hancock and Otis used to
20 to the Boston Gazette and compose
articles on the rights of the people.
Franklin, De Witt Clinton,
Jefferson, Quincy, were
strong in newspaperdom. Many of
he immortal things that have been
published in book form first appeared
IN what you may call the ephemeral
periodical. All Macaulay's essays first
in review. All Carlyle's,
all Ruskins, all McIntosh's, all sgd
ney Smiths. all Hazlitt's, all Thack-
eray's, all the elevated works Of fc-
ton in our day, are reprints from
periodicals in which they appeared as
serials. Tennyson's poems, Burns
MONS T,onoralloU'c Ooaus Finer