The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1901-06-15
STORY WAS LEADED

other day.
The newspaper man explained about th
'1eads," or strips of type metal, that ar
placed between the lines of type of al
article of such importance that it is de
srable to have it "stand out" more promi
nently than the ly-printed articles
an ordinary news character, and then h'
continued:
II don't wonder that you ask that ques
ton about leading didn't know any
thing whatever about it when | applied
for my first job in a newspaper Office.
was pretty young chap then, and l hat
the journalistic bug. l went to Chicago
from small town in Illinois, provided
with a letter from one Of the big mer
of the state to the editor of great Chi
cago daily. | knew how to write fairl!
well, but Id never had days experience
in a newspaper office. | was, therefore
prepared to start in in pretty humble
way and to make the stab at climbing il
the newspaper business. The best looked
for-for | was very little more than q
years old--was billet at about five dollar
week in a newspaper office, and chance tt
dog rob around and see what the other fel
lows were doing.
II presented my letter to the famou
editor OF the Chicago newspaper, and HI
looked me over with a not very ap
proving eye. But he sent for the city edi
tor, and when the latter made his appear
ance the editor nodded toward me ant
said to the city editor:
"'Give this youngster little something
to do this afternoon and see if he cal
do it,
"The city editor gared at me as if hat
somehow or another violently offended him
and growled out
Come out here.
~ followed him to his private office in thu
city room, and sat down while he figured
out "a little something to do for me. Ill
found it finally, and turned and glared al
me some more.
"'There's crazy man, living in tent OF
a vacant lot down on Michigan avenue
who's got contraption that he thinks is
perpetual motion machine, growled the city
editor to me- Go down there and look him
and his apparatus over, and then come bach
here and write something about it,
at didn't look like a particularly promis
ing subject for man who had never before
been in the newspaper business and who
wasn't use to inditing airy persiAage about
folks with wheels in their heads, but !
grabbed bunch of copy paper and went
out to cover the assignment. l found thu
long haired chap in his tent, and he showed
me his funny windmill looking affair and
explained to me at great length how it va.
going to revolutonize the whole state o.
society. He was funny cuss, cracked be
yond doubt, and his earnestness and hi
absolute belief in his invention were ex
traordinary. l spent about an hour with
him and then hikcd back to the Office tt
write my stuff i didn't know then that i,
was called stuff; that all kinds of newspaper
copy is called stuff by newspaper men.
"The subject was so fresh in my mind
and the quaint manners of the inventor
of the perpetual motion machine had strucl
ME as being so funny that I didn't have
much trouble in rafting off pretty nearly :
column about the business. Then waited
until there was nobody in with the city
editor and took the stuff into his office anc
laid it on the desk without saying anything
I didn't feel very confident that this first
achievement of mine in the newspaper linz
was going to help me much toward getting
job
"The city editor picked up my stuff yer,
eingerly and shook it as if it had been filled
with desk cockroaches, and then he started
in to read it, after bestowing numerous
awful scowls upon me over his specs. He
was a nervous, gray-hared, smooth-faced
man, with the most ferocious manners and
the kindest heart that ever beat beneaths
vest He seemed to become interested il
the first two or three lines of my little yarn
about the crank Inventor, and he leaned
back in his revolving chair and read il
closely. When he had finished the first page
he turned and scowled frightfully at mei
then he slammed the stuff down on hi
desk, grabbed big blue pencil and say
agely drew straight line from the top to
the bottom of the page. That move just
about knocked me silly.
"It's all off, said to myself, when
having finished reading the second page
the city editor again grabbed his blue pen
Gil and drew another savage line in the
middle of the page from the top to the bot
tom thereof 4 s'pose he sees that my
work is idiotic and that it won't do and
! felt pretty cerulean for fact.
every time he'd finish reading pag
the city editor would wheel about in hi,
CIdlE anu klONSl uJul Ilc ana thCh uih"
one of those brutal straight lines through
my copy, and by the time he had finished
reading the last page l had silently risen
from my chair with my hat in my hand
and was edgng toward the door. ! didn't
know but that he might throw something
at me. After he'd drawn the line through
the last page and was apparently consider
ing something while he gazed straight up
at the ceiling, managed to blurt out from
my stand over near the door:
Its pretty bad, sir, is it?
"The city editor rounded upon me as !.
he intended to hop upon my frame and
throttle me, and said:
"'What's pretty bad?'
"'That thing of mine on your desk, said
!, in fear and trembling,
" Bad, nothing, growled the city editor.
glaring at me. ITS bully stuff, and you
know it, don't you dare to try to fish for
compliments from me, you cub; the stuf'i
bully!
81 was dumbfounded naturally. If the
stuff was bully, why in the dickens had
he drawn those violent lines through every
page of it, as if he wanted to obiterate it?
"But those lines ] started to STAN,
ner.
"'What lines" interrupted the city edi
tor, and when | pointed to the blue pencil
marks he had made on my copy he lay
back and chuckled-he was never known to
laugh out loud in his whole career, but this
time he chuckled softly for fully a minuts
before he could calculate;
"'Why, that's leading, son; leading
con- said |. didn't know what the
deuce he meant, but thought il must b.
all right.
"'You'll do, said the city editor then,
Wen start you in at twenty-five week.
Go out there and take that desk, and he
came to the door and pointed out vacant
desk in the city room.