The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-09-14
A Few of the Trials
TRIBULATIONs IN THE
By Waller Life of a News Editor.


blown out of the water by the jeers of
the indignant writer, or begin the wrestle
with a problem greater than Champollion
tackled before his discovery of the
Rosetta stone.
Now, suppose you adopt the latter
course Time is flying; just beyond your
elbow the telegraph ''sounder" is rafting
away like mad; close beside it the opera
tors Remington keeps up a clicking rush.
shot through every few seconds by a sill
very ting" every now and then type
written sheet comes sailing over on your
desk; blue-clad messenger boys of the
Postal and Western Union dart in with
specials" and slap down their delivery
books under your nose for you to sign;
news is pouring in upon you from the
four quarters of the globe; some of it
must be condensed. some of it possibly
ampliZ
Waugh! No. Stop right there Not in
this print shop, my son. Crowded? 1
wonder sometimes the chases don't burst.
And, as l was saying, each one of these
articles must be weighed according to
it's value as news and head lines that in
dictate its relative Importance written
over it.
Meanwhile other proofs are coming
! humping down on your desk, and present.
! ly there is a sGuawk from the "devif'
! for copy"
Perdition! Down goes the grabbed
scrawl and you seize the typewriter
sheets. Thank the pigs, here at least is
something that can be read. But OBJ, the
disgust that clutches you when it is read.
Here is an article of two thousand or
more words in length You have been
waiting and hoping for a good first-page
leader This at first blush looked as if
it were going to fill the bill. But shades
of Rhamkatte! it turns to dust in your
mouth The thing is padded to death.
Padded did l say? Why, holy Hermes!
there's nothing to pad. Whence came the
Rocking nebulosity around which this in
! genious scribe-this Grand Mogul of the
Unapproachable Diffuse-has wrapped so
gigantic an agglomeration of verbal saw
! dust?
! Such questions are too much for you.
Feeling that "that way madness lies"
/ you wisely call halt. with blood in
your eye you fall upon that gilded fraud
/ hammer and tongs. You lop off its head,
| you amputate its wandering tentacles,
! you rip it up the back, you gouge out a
ton or two Of its dressing, you grind it
and pound it and squeeze it in your re-
morseless mill until at last it issues
! thcrefrom modest little ghost of itself
/ that perchance will nestle down quietly
within a hundred and fifty words.
And with savage dig and scratch you
scrawl single line head above and jam
/ the offending item down upon your file,
wondering as you give it a final vengeful
! glance if it wouldn't have been better to
have slain the thing outright beyond all
hope of resurrection.
Then, seeking an outlet for the strug-
! Cling Stromboli within, you grab again
! that wretchcd MS over which you have
/ so long fruitlessly toiled, rend it into rib
bons and execute sort of Sioux Ghost
Dance over the remains while you devote
| the writer to regions far remote from the
Isles OF the Blessed.
These are a few of the joys that illumi-
nate the life of that bird of the night, the
/ news editor.
But there's brighter side to the pic
! ture, my boy; else there'd be no old news
editors. Like good Injuns they'd all die
young.
| Eth? You'd like peep at the brighter
side, you say? Well, here you are.
An unfortunate compositor has gotten
! hold of a piece of copy that looks as if
/ it might have been written by half
defunct spider who has essayed suicide
| in the ink well. 1t winds up something
/ like this:
The Rev. Mr.. Howlumloud then pro-
nounced the benediction and the elabor-
ate exercises were at an end. And l am
! id glad of it,
4
ment of the much aggrieved type-setteT,
| though at first glance it certainly does
not look like it, Rather it appears tho
final remark of one of the lights of the
church who attended and reported the eX-
crcises, and it explodes in your brain a
mental bomb that leaves you for the mo-
ment aghast and afterwards convulses
you with unholy mirth.
/ similar state of mind is produced
when on reading patent medicine adj
yertisement you find that Mrs. Brown, of
Brownville who had for years suffered
untold agones with some fell disease,
after taking one bottle Of Dr. Cureall's
! Astounding Discovery found herself en-
tirely Cursed" 1t is hardly necessary to
state that 'cured" was the word in the
copy but did not the careless compost
Immediately afterward you find your
self alf-paraIyzed by the announcement
that the Reverend Mr. Spouting Thunder
will preach at Little Sion on the Parade
of the Tans." A depraved and heathenish
typo has thus rendered the Parable OF
the Tares. And when your first feeble
chuckle over this absurd blunder has
deepened into a guffaw of almost satanic
glee you find yourself still further cleo
trfed by the statement that some politi-
cal celebrity was so badly used up by his
opponent that he would have preferred to
encounter all the players of Pharaoh"
At this you wonder if the players of
Pharaoh could have been half as bad as
some of the so-called stars" that now
mouth and prance behind the footlights
affecting a long suffering public, and for
the first time something like pity stirs in
your heart for the stony hearted old
Egyptian despOt.
Until all at once it dawns upon you that
plaques and not players is what was in