The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-05-29

New York, May 25.-At least one hon.
est industry begins to be very seriously
affected by the war-that of the space
writers for the newspapers. The space
writers supply the larger part of the spe.
cial articles for the great Sunday issues
They often take subjects on the assign.
ment of the Sunday editor, but they as
often submit subjects to him for APP
prcval. He pays for only such matter
as he accepts, at a given rate a word.
Many of these writers in New York
are women-largely southern women.
1t is practicable for only few of them
to go off and be war correspondents,
but war news and war stories" are
now the only class of matter that en-
joys anything like a sure call on space.
General and miscellaneous themes are
of secondary Importance, and articles
that deal with them are the first TO be
sent out on the sudden arrival of a
new war sensation. Consequently the
Sunday editors are buying much less
of such matter than in ordinary times.
And not only that, but in several of the
large newspaper offices here, L under
stand, the managers, forced into cur
tailments at every possible point by the
extraordinary expense of getting war
news, are reducing the space writer's
pay. Such a condition long continued
would mean almost starvation for some
of these writer's. At best their calling is
a most precariouS one. A week in which
they make $40 or $50 is likely to be fol-
lowed by several in which they make
$50. or S20 or $40, or nothing. OF
course, these figures are not what they
ordinarily confess to; in the open court
ff,a CT IN n
they are won't to credit themselves
with. But even in their most expansive
moments they don't mind letting you
know that their immediate condition
is distinctly necessitous, and just now
they complain Of their situation bit
terly.
The raw recruits in the ranks of the
space writer's are those confident and
confiding young people, who, having
written a successful poem or story, de-
eide to come to New York to live by
literature" For most of them it is
about as unlucky a choice as they
could make. 1t does not at all mean
what, in their ineXperience, they are
apt to suppose it will mean-the produce
ton of other poems and stories yet
more successful and a gradual growth
in literary reputation until, finally, the
independence of $50 a 1000 words and
immediate acceptance of all you write
is attained. Alas, MOI 1t means taking
up a calling that is as independent of
verse and story writing as railroading;
and one that has to be as carefully
learned and as practically pursued, if
It is to yield fair wages, as any other.
1t is positively unfriendly to pure liter
airy production. The space writer's
great capital is his facility-his ability
TO do things with dash; he has no
time to waste in the mere vanity of
making things fine.
The new writer's are not apt to have
the older writer's for their earliest and
strongest admirers, and when a new
writer does make a quick impression
or the older ones, it's pretty good evil
dence that he is no ordinary man. Jo-
seph Conrad. the author of Tales of
Unrest" has succeeded in doing this.
A friend OF mine, who has just re-
turned from England, where he talked
with nearly everybody in the writing
and publishing circles, tells me that the
first person named to him by most OF
those he met was Conrad. William E.
Henley, J. NJ. Barrie and George Mere
dith ali spoke TO him of Conrad. COM
uending the work he had already done
and expressing high hopes of what he
might still do. Tales of Unrest is
collection of short stories, and while
his earlier book, THE Children OF the
Sea" (Which, by the way, was pub
lished in England under the title of
"Nigger of the NarciSsuS''), is a single
story, it hardly rises to the dignity of
a novel, Mr.. Conrad has just finished
writing a novel, however-One OF which
those who have read it speak in the
highest terms. 1t will not be published
until late in the fall or early in the
winter.
You may have observed that there
has not beer much told of the story of
Mr. Conrad's life. That is because he
does not himself tell much of it. He
writes so well of the sea because he
knows it. He has had, undoubtedly,
rare adventures on those remote coasts
to which he has'traded as merchant
captain, but. for some reason, he
chooses to say little about them. 1t
is not certain even that he is an Eng
lishman, and il is certain that Conrad
is not his real name.
The naming of characters in stories
and novels is a VIGOROUSLY delicate
business, and when an author is most
confident of having been quite original
in it, he is, apparently, likeliest to find
himself mistaken. Mr.. John A. Hill
was telling me a day of two since an
interesting recent experience of MS
that exemplifies this. A month or two
ago he published in one of the maya
zines story entitled THE Polar
Zone" 1t represented a young man,
while lazly pursuing his own pleasure
at San Francisco, as discovering among
the shipping there a steam whaler
bearing the name of Duncan Melon
aid. which was his own name, as it
had been his fathers before him. Made
curious by the coincidence. he went
aboard to learn, if he could, how the
ship came by her name, and found in
the captain and owner an old friend
and shiDmate of his father, his father
having been a sailor, too.
In writing the story Mr.. Hill had
taken the. name of Duncan McDon-
aid" quite by accident, simply because
it came to him. 1t was no more IA
miliar to him than others. and not par
ticularly associated in his mind with
seafaring. But soon after the story
was published he received letter, in
which the writer said: I am curious
to know how you happened to use the
name Duncan Mcdonald" in the story,
for the simple reason that my father
bore the same name, that he was a
sailor. and engaged at times in the
West Indian trade The letter adds
that the real Duncan Mcdonald sailed
for 20 years from -Provincetown, and in
1873 lost his ship and life in collision
off Newfoundland.
1t is not simply the coincidence of
name and calling that is interesting
here. but it is the further fact that in /
using the name of Duncan Mcdonald Z
in his fiction Mr.. Hill had invented and
worked out in the experience of one of !
his cha racters very much such a COIN [