Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-02-21

some of their doings, until in this day,
when we have in this country many
thousands of skilled stenographers and
newspapers sending out copies by the
billion The press and the telegraph
have gone down into the same great
harvest field to reap, and the telegraph
says to the newspaper, "I'll rake while
you bind,' and the iron teeth of the
telegraph are set down at one end of the
harvest field and drawp clean across,
and. the newspaper gathers up the
sheaves, setting down one sheaf on the
breakfast table in the shape of a morn
ing newspaper and putting down an
other sheaf on the tea table in the shape
of an evening newspaper. and that man
who neither reads nor takes newspa-
per would be curiosity. What vast
progress since the days when Cardinal
Wolsey declared that either the print
ing press must go down or the church
of God must go down to this time, when
the printing press and the pulpit are in
hundreds of glorious com binations and
alliances!
Trials of Newspaper Work.
One of the great trials of this news
paper profession is the fact that they are
compelled to see more Ut the shamS OF
the world than any other profession.
Through every newspaper office, day by
day, 90 the weakness of the world, the
vanities that want to be puffed, the re-
venges that want to be wreaked, all the
mistakes that want to be corrected, all
the dull speakers who want to be
thought eloquent, all the meanness that
wants to get it's wares noticed gratis in
the editorial columns in order to save
the tax of the advertising column, all
the men who want to be set right who
never were right, all the crack Drained
philosophers, with story as long as their
hair and as gloomy as their finger nails,
all the itinerant bores who come to stay
five minutes and stop an hour. From
the editorial and reportorial rooms all
the follies and shams of the world are
seen day by day, and the temptation is
to believe neither in God, man, nor
woman. It is no surprise to me that in
your profession there are some skeptical
men. I only wonder that you believe
anything. Unless an editor or report
er has in his present or in his early
home a model of earnest character or he
throw himself upon the upholding grace
of God he may make temporal and eter-
nal shipwreck.
Another great trial of the newspaper
profession is inadequate compensation.
Since the days of Hazlitt and Sheridan
and John Milton and the wailings of
Grub street, London, literary toll, with
very few exceptions, has not been prop
erly requited When Oliver Goldsmith
received friend in his house, he (the
author) had to sit on the window, be-
cause there was only one chair. Lin
naus sold his splendid work for a
ducat. De Foe, the author of so many
volumes, died penniless. The learned
johnson dined behind a screen because
his clothes were too shabby to allow
him to dine with the gentlemen who on
the other side of the screen were APP
plauding his works. And so on down to
the present time literary toll is a great
struggle for bread. The world seems to
have a grudge against a man who, as
they say, gets his living by his wits,
and the day laborer says to the man of
literary toll, ''You come down here and
shove plane, and hammer a shoe last,
and break cobblestones, and earn an
honest living as I do instead of sitting
there in idleness scribbling." But there
are no harder worked men in all the
earth than the newspaper people of this
country. 1t is not matter of hard
times; it is characteristic at all times
Men have better appreciation for that
which appeals to the stomach than for
that which appeals to the brain. They
have no idea of the immense financial
and intellectual exhaustion of the news
paper press. Oh, men of the press, it
will be great help to you if when you
get home late at night tagged out and
nervous with your work you would just
kneel down and commend your case to
God, who has watched all the fatigues
of the day and the night and who has
promised to be your God and the God of
your children forever!
Perverted Appetites.
Another great trial of the newspaper
profession is the diseased appetite for
unhealthy intelligence. You blame the
newspaper press for giving such promi-
nence to murders and scandals. Do you
suppose that SO many papers would give
prominence to these things if the people
did not demand them? If I go into the
meat market of foreign city and find
that the butchers hang up on the most
conspicuous hooks meat that is tainted,
while the meat that is fresh and savory
is put away without any special care, I
come to the conclusion that the people
of that city love tainted meat You
know very we'll that if the great mass
of people in this country get hold of a
and there are in it no runa-
way matches, no broken up families, no
defamation of men in high position,
they pronounce the paper insipid. They
say cit is shockingly dull tonight I