The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-02-25
Che Evolution 81 NJ. Quad
How Printer Achieved Fame AS a Funny Man-HiS Gil
gantic Fakes Startled the Country.

Mr. Quinby wants to see you said
the city editor
Oh, yes. said the stranger. Had
I letter from Quinby and he hired me
! 10 write for the paper. but I've never
seen MN yet. Hope he liked what 1
wrote
That was how NJ. Quad and Mr..
Qunby met the first time Next day
room and a desk were provided for
quad. and for years he was the orig
maj and only Detroit Free Press man
The Once Famous Bijah.
One of Quad's best known charac-
ters in other days was 'Bijah' the jani-
Tor at the central police court in De-
trolt. Unlike most of the people Lewis
wrote about, 'Bijah' had a flesh and
blood existence, and was a real court
attendant He was a fat. rather stupid
chap, who often said funny things with
out knowing it, and whose odd person
atty appealed to Quad. He seldom said
or did the things Quad described, and
az nrSt was much put out because of
the notoriety which had suddenly been
thrust upon him. Later he became rec
oneiled, largely, I fancy, because many
strangers in Detroit used TO go to the
police court and ask to see him. In
time the visitors who wanted to see BIZ
venience of the court, and he was
transferred to a station near the peri
phery of the town, where he couldn't
De found easily. In time Bijah came to
Deileve that he was really as funny as
quad made him out to be. and undoubt-
edly used TO half believe that he had
been the making Of the writer.
In those old days whenever any part
OF the paper got dull, Quad used to be
asked to liven it up a bit. His con-
tributiOns bearing on the civil war. then
recent, and in which he had played
part, were commonly known in the
office as 'uhrillers,' and properly so.
They used to thrill Mr.. Quinby even,
despite his long experience as a news
paper man. Sometimes Quad was eX-
tremely valuable in the local columns.
He could make an interesting story out
or something that would degenerate
into a list of names or worse in other
hands. But he. wasn't particularly
strong on facts. I shall never forget
the account Of a certain fire from his
pen 1t was one of the most lurid re-
ports ever handed TO city
editor, but it didn't contain the names
of the burned buildings owners or ten
ants, or a word about the insurance.
So a man who had a nose for facts was
sent to gather the details. Combined,
the TWO reports made remarkably nne
local feature, but after that Lewis was
rarely or never expected TO do the
whole Of any news story.
Wonderful News Specials.
while on the Free Press. Quad
acted as Detroit correspondent for a
big New York paper, and the things
he telegraphed to 1t were marvels. Each
had a basis Of fact, as a rule, but the
filling was mainly fiction. Not often
was one of his dispatches less than two
columns long, and the telegraph tolls
made them pretty expensive to the New
York paper. but they were eagerly &C
cepted and printed, and more would
have been taken readily could he have
furnished them, for they made cir
culation and caused the paper to be
copied wherever the English language
was read. One of the most remarkable
of these specials appeared the day
after the great railroad accident at
Ashtabula. The special told the per-
sOnal experiences of an old man and his
wife who had survived the catastrophe,
and had been interviewed in Detroit on
their way home by the correspondent.
The story was nothing less than a hu-
man document. 1t related the sensations
of the couple as they went down with
the bridge, of their terror as they dis
appeared under the ice in the frigid