Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1897-01-18
RUDYARD KIPLING.
As a Newspaper Man in Far Lahore-A
Naive staff.
Academy.

Academy.
Kipling has said that he who has once
been a journalist remains a journalist 10
the end. He said this in a semi-auto-
biographical sense.
As a boy from school Kipling was
brought out to India, and began at once
TO earn his modest monthly wage at the
bottom of the ladder Of Anglo-lndian jour-
nalism. Newspaper work in India is car
ried on by three classes Of men. The
natives-HindoO, Mohammedan and sikh
labor side by side setting up the type
and working the machines Eurasians and
Lomiciled British subjects supply the stan
of readers" while the comparatively eX-
pensive. because imported, Anglo-lndians
fill the editorial staff.
And who are the shorthand reporters
and sub-editors? In Kipling's day the up
country newspaper had none. The edi-
torial STAFF. comprising two men, did the
entire work of getting out the daily
paper. and if you want to know how Kip
ling worked as one of the two men who
produced the civil and Military Gazette
daily. with its seven nages of reading
matter and seven of advertisements, you
could not do better than turn into that
large double bungalow on the Lahore Mail
and ask CHEEKY Milan Rukhn-un-dln, the
Mohammedan foreman printer; ask Bahi
Pertab Singh. the loyal and orthodox
Sikh bookkeeper; ask Babu Hakim Ali,
the courteous Moslem clerk, 10 whom was
entrusted the task Of pasting htpiing' s
printed work into volumes-for in the eor-
liest days Kipling had the careful habits
q
his: ask Habibulla,. the willing chaprassi,
on whose head Kiplings Office box came
and went daily. They will tell you how
Kipling worked.
As a journalist he was the man whom
all editors seek and few find. lie was a
staff in himself. He distrusted his own
powers it is true, so much that to demand
a leading article from him filled him with
anguish. He said it was above him, -
and he scarcely wrote five in as many
years But for every other kind of work,
from writing editorial notes to putting
side heads to paragraphs, or reporting a
police court case, he was as willing as
he was gifted.
There are nights in the Punjab when the
rains are delayed and the thermometer
ranges at about 100 degrees day and night;
when the days waking thoughts Of a busy
brain twist themselves into the torturing
nightmares in those sitting hours that
precede the dawn and the dawn brings no
relief. Such nights there were in 1881, and
the Engish-speaking world then went
near to losing Kiplng before it had heard
of him.
But he never Stacked in his work, of
which on "high-collar" days there was
more than enough. y "high-collar' day,
it may be explained was one on which
no kilograms from England were received
before going to press. and editorial Notes
of the day" had to be written to fill the
column which the kilograms should have
occupied, thus bringing the editorial mat
ter close up to the head, like high-col-
lar of the first column
At other times a multiplicity of tele-
grams crowded out so many Notes of the
Day" that several OF these, dealing with
cognate subjects, had to be strung to-
gether into what Kiping called patent
seamless" leaders. Outside contributors
to papers in India nearly all belong TO the
civil or military services, and their contri-
buttons were often bald in style though
welcome for the information they con-
tanned Adding the few lines of comment
to qualify their contributions to b eused
as notes Kipling described as fitting on
the whiplash, and his were always neat
" tied and keen in application.