Evening star., 1901-01-05
A New York Writer Describes the
Especial" Editor.
THE ENGLISH IDEA OF HOW We TALK
Play Folks Say Capital People Are
Hard to Please.
WILL ONLY TAKE THE BEST


business with ShoeString a few years ago
ana Is now said to possess a million dol
| lars for every year of his life-he is thirty
three-is more like an American in appear
| ance and manner than an Englishman
| This is equivalent to saying that Mr. AL
| fred Harmsworth rs a mighty companions
able and unaffected sort of a young man.
| Besides, he possesses that which is rare for
| an Englishman to possess-a genuine sense
of humor. l watched and studied him for
while on Monday, while he was working
| on that special edition. according to his
| own ideas, of what modern newspaper
| ought to be, and he seemed to be getting a
| lot or wholesome fun out of the experience.
| He appeared to regard the gruesome coun-
| tenances of the space writer's employed on
| the sheet as being particularly funny The
| stories of the space writers were boiled
| down under Harmsworths direction to
| mcst lnconsequentia lengths, for it is a
| part or the belief of the young man from
| over seas that no newspaper article-short
| OF description of a cataclysm-ought to
| exceed one column in length. The space
| writer's on the sheet Mr. Harmsworth was
| editing for day have wide regulations in
| neWspaperdom as space grabbers," and
| When they saw the merCiiess blue pencil of
| the young Englshman chopping whole
| hunks out of their news effusions their
| ccuntenances betrayed their inward lamen-
| tatlons, whereat Mr.. Harmsworth laughed
nallclously. For the benefit of those who
| don know what space writer is it should
| be explained that he writes for the news
paper employing him at much per col
| un n, which, of course, renders him so busy
| with his pencil or his typewriter that the
! copy readers have to watch his stuff
| with lynX-eyed vigilance, else each space
writer would attempt to capture the news
columns of the entire paper for his matter
alone Under ordinary circumstances the
space writer's overwrte themselves in dress
ing up their news "stories,'' with the per-
fectly safe expectation. based upon ex-
perience, that the Stories will be
the fashion that the butcher trims lamb
chops, and they are so scientific in their
padding that they know in advance Just
about how much Of their copy" will be
preserved.
The space men employed by the sheet
which Harmsworth undertook to eGict for
a day were warned in advance that they d
better keep their copy down to skeleton
limits II they wanted to see the same in
print at all. and most of them turned in
with heavy signs, news articles that seemed
to them to be of no more substance than
the false work. of a bridge of fog. When
then, they saw even these skeletonized
stories cast into the remorseless Harms
worth hopper, to come out in the utterly
unrecognizabe shape of half sticks of
agate with one-line heads. and quite lost
even in the our-column paper, their OBJ
vious sadness little short of pitiable
and Mr.. Harmsworth palpably enjoyed a
bit of malicious mrth at their expense for
quite while. Then he announced that he
Intended to pay the space men out of his
own pocket for the huge gobs of copy that
he had condensed into infinitesmal shreds
of news, thereby showing himself to be a
pretty square sort of young man-for
there was no particular reason why the
space men should have suffered a curtail-
ment of their incomes by reason of their
employers desire to experiment.
Another Point of View.
Mr.. Harmsworth appeared to have a lot
of fun. too, over the continuous manifesto
tions of grief on the part of the people from
the business office of the paper he was
editing for day. He doesn't believe that
a newspaper ought to contain too much ad-
vertising and he doesn't believe that any
one advertiser should have more than a Ger
tair amount of space. AS soon as he took
hold of the paper he began to instruct the
advertisement people down stairs to chop
the big ads to smthereens. The advertis-
ing manager sought out the editor-for-a-
day in his den and pleaded with him. and
besought and impored. and talked about
annual contracts. and the ad. writers tore
their hair and all but wept in their i'm
potent wrath but the young man who was
bossing the job of getting out one days is-
sue of the paper beamed biandly upon
them, and mildly told them that he expect
ed them to follow his instructions. A lot of
the big advertisers We're shut out of the
paper altogether. while others saw their
page and half-page announcements shriv-
eled to a few lines in corners. The adver-
tIsers. however, appear to have taken 1t all
good naturedly, wisely knowing that hence
forth their advertisements are liable to at
tract a good deal more attention than be-
fore on account of the discussion aroused
the advertising subject through the
Harmsworth experiment.
Interesting Personality.
Harmsworth doesn't look his thrty-three
years. His smooth-shaven countenance is
decidedly boyish. He Is good-looking and
if you saw him without knowing anything
about him you would put him down as a
clean, wholesome chap, just away from one
of the big American universities He hasn't
single characteristic of the Englishman.
He talks in short, choppy way, always
good naturedly and he hasn't particle of
the English drawl. He doesn't make any
attempt to jolly American men along by
that offensive use of clustering style Of
conversation which some Englishmen-
notably a couple of English dukes who
rived separately in New York not long ago
-idiotically imagined was the proper caper
on this side Of the water One of these
young dukes In particular succeeded in
making show Of himself through his ele-
phantine desire to adapt himself to what
he understood was the correct American
style of conversation among gentlemen. He
swore profusely, and talked about var
mints." and worked in the phrase high
falutin ~ as OFTEN as possible, and spoke
of them con-dinged critters and 1t was
actually pitful to see the fellows discom-
future when he observed that his silly,
Deadwood Dick style Of talking wasn't
making any manner of hit whatsoever
with the reporters who interviewed him
upon his arrival. The reporters looked
upon him as a sort Of curiosity while he
was getting off this line of talk, which the
English performers in London music halls
had taught him to believe was the genuine
American gentlemans manner Of speech.
and they were all exceedingly particular to
address him in their best manner eliminat-
ing all slangy illusions. The duke flushed,
looked surprised and took the hint after
awhile. and before the termination Of the
interview he was conyersing like sensible
man. Harmsworth has no mannerisms
whatever. and he talks more like an Ameri-
can than any notable Englishman who ever
came to these shores, with the probable
exception of Henry Labouchere-"Labby"-
who lived in the United States as a young
man.
Along the Same Lines.
While adverting to this subject of the
average Englishman's conception of the
American method of speech, I shall mar
rate a little talk I had the other afternoon
with famous and wealthy young Amer