The age-herald., 1900-06-03
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Continued from Seventeenth Page).

Continued from Seventeenth Page).
 method of instantly learning here what
 is happening in the far elsewhere occa-
 sionally plays queer tricks with our time
 and others time-and l trust you will not
 think I am trihing with your time if stray out in a short aside.
 After the French fashion, murderers are executed in Paris at early dawn, so that we in New York may get the news tonight of a guillotining which will take place there tomorrow morning. The news being
 relayed to San Francisco, reaches there instantly, so far as time of transmission Is concerned, but three hours further back in our current day, for when it is a. m. In Paris it is but a. m. with us in New York today, and is not quite midnight yester- l day in San Francisco. Some curious com outer has even gone so far us to say that when the trans Pacific cable is laid be- tween San Francisco and the Philippines, the news may be flashed to Manila so as to arrive there at 6 o'clock last evening, or fourteen hours before the assassins neck was chopped in two; and that sup posing next the news is again cabled from
 Manila to Paris, it will arrive there twen- ty-four hours ahead of yesterdays time, and this same assassin will have the mel ancholy satisfaction of reading the account
 of his own execution which had taken place tomorrow morning.
 
 fair inference that the great perpleXing question to the public 10 which 1 have al
 ready referred-that of "Where in the world do the newspapers get all the things they print?" is a problem foreign to the fact as that other public idea that no man
 can be literary unless he has ink stains upon his fingers. Now, the truth is, in the
 one case, that the perpleXing question IS how to find room for 1.-the of the matter that comes to a newspaper office, and, Tn ba that the literary man
 nowadays works off his inspirations on the keys of a typewriting machine. But here are a few curious figures:
 The ordinary edition of a paper, we will say, is that of sixteen pages, each page ot seven columns, each column of 1,2oO words in nonpareil, or, as MT. Lightning Calcuia- tor has already figured out, 1t would take a total of 900 words of nonpare1l type to fill ordinary sixteen-page, seVen-col- umn paper. But out of all this space com paratively little can be used for straightway news. The advertisements, at an average of fifty columns, take the space Of 60,OJ0 words, and reduce the first total to 74,O0O. The editorial page takes away the space of 400 words; the sporting page S4O more; the commercial, real estate and financial page S4OO more or a total of 25 200 word space for these three departments. Taking these figures from the already diminished 74000-word space we have left but ASSOC or say, roundly, 49,000. But the reduction pro- cess IS not yet cOHlpltle. | Ht pICbuito OS- cupy, on an average, the space of seven columns, S,4OO words and the heads eight columns, or 9,600 more words; that is, a space of 1S,000 words for heads and cuts. Take away these figures from the rapidly diminishing space of 49 GOO words and we have just a 39 000-word space, or about twenty-six columns for general news. Now, what is the supply for this limited demand?
 The A. P. Telegraph sends in every day of national, foreign ship and market re- ports about 10000 words, of which Of unde- partmental, StraightaWay news there are about S0000 words.
 The special and regular telegraph corre- spondents send about 10000 words. The Standard sends in of routine subur- ban news about 10000 words.
 The A P. local about 25, GOO words. The city staff writes about 25, 900 words or a total of about 190 coo words, or 56 900 more words than would fill the paper should all the columns of every one of the sixteen pages be packed with solid, unillustrated, unheaded news.
 Or what would almost fill every column of twenty-three page paper.
 Or 159,O00 words; that is, 122 columns more than is used.
 I trust you will agree with me that the problem of getting news to fill' has been solved
 Just a moment to glance at the depart mental sources of news, each department having it's special editor whose duties range from recording the swirl and gut- tony of the Wall street menagerie to the damning of the stage debutante and from keeping watch on the real estat. market to maintaining the annals of mock heroic gladators.
 Nor must I forget the library and bio- graphical department. The library of a great daily, it must be understood does not alone consist of it's thousands of ref erence volumes; it embraces also an en- eyclopedia that runs with the times. Ed-
 tions of 1898 or even 1899 will not do for a newspaper. It must have its edition of this very year, of this very day. The en- cyclopedia l have reference to is not in volumes, but is in rows and tiers and nests and cabinets of boxes, pigeonholes and en- Velopes. Into these busy men are con Stantly poking and storing the information of the hour like so many bees making their honey harvest; while others, even while I speak, are segregating and slowing away every item that has appeared in today's papers. The consequence is-in theory that whenever the latest information upon any subject is required there is the pigeon
 hole in it the envelope, and in the en- veope is the information.
 While the department are all thus well organized there needs a head to see that the complete organization is always in working order. That head is the manag- ing editor, and, according to the modern annalysis of title and division of duties, he might rather be called manager than editor.
 On arriving at the office he consults with the other powers that be" as to the news outlook of the day and the policy of the paper based on the trend of today's af- fairs. The city room must be visited and the news features discussed, the work of the art department inspected: the business manager consulted special telegraphic in- ouiries answered; interviews arranged for and granted; the foreman of the composing room conferred with and deliberation held with the night editor on the makeup of the paper He must be thoroughly familiar with every branch of publication, whether executive, editorial or mechanical. He is responsible for everything, and must see that everything is expeditiously, economi- cally and intelligently performed. When possible he must save ten cents on the ex- pense account and when necessary he may expend ten thousand dollars to procure single item of news.
 Above all things he must be a past grand