Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1904-12-09
OUR MESS OF PoTTAGE.

same extent he is the foot of his
household). And here's how he
lords it over his province. Even the
office boys take him for a door mat
when caught mapping, metaphorically
but more specifically when he is
out of sight. The "bottom rail"
often gets on top in printing Office
the chore-boy and fire-kindler
lords it over the office "deyil" when
the signs of the zodiac are favorable;
the devil" in turn pelts the motor
man USUALLY of ebon hue; the dusky
Sambo sasses the typo, the typo
renigs on the assistant foreman, and
the latter, lord of an inheritance to
title, jaws the foreman till that high
and mighty official goes way up
stairs and sits down to make misera-
BILE the life of the proof reader or
the chiefs stenographer. OF course
all this is presumed to be done when
the editor is mapping.
Not infrequently. though, the
whole gang below stairs enters into
a horrid conspiracy to do the chief;
and he is done-up "brown." Con-
certedly they set up a wall for
"copy," and the distracted editor,
hidden behind maze of newspapers,
spring poems or Thanksgiving fairy
tales, as the season may call for,
and raft of communications telling
of some egoist's Wanted doings,
trips or family blessings, grabs
pastepot, scissors and blue-pencil
and makes herculean dive to bring
reason out of chaos. Copy is ground
out as rapidly as stock-ticker aft
fords information. 1t is not long be-
fore quiet step of the foreman, his
advent and low tone of admonition
break the news that the boys are
Siam up" type getting low in the
cases and "you better Gull over that
stuff to see what can be crowded
out" None but the editor of local
paper knows what that portends.
His efforts heretofore have been but
as child's play. Now comes the
task. oh, ye cursory readers, if We
but knew that 10 columns, each "a
inches long and 2 1-6 inches wide,
held but $40 square inches of stuff
you would not be so generous in Of
fering whole broadsides of daily pa
pers with the gratuitous remark that
81 know you want something to fill
up with J" We want something to
I'LL up with, yes; but not for our
papers. Our craniums may be
empty, and need filling, or more
likely our avoirdupois is on the
wane because that dollar you owe
was needed to buy a thanksgiving
turkey. But we are never in need
OF avalanches of small type reprint
that is dished out by machinery and
padded by space writers. Our heads
have become light by porting over
column after column of such stuff.
reading, cutting, slashing, rereading,
erasing, and re-rereading to get into
circumscribed space SO that the pith
aud not the fibrous stalk NAV be
yours. Here is where we serve the
busy men (the lazy man will have to
resort to yellow journals and papers
with ''section 92nd" as their finale\.
AT the same time we are laboring
for the man who can take but one
paper and that his local paper-THe
Light of TIE Forld.
Aye, there's the rub-to now re.
hash and condense; mark out an "it~
here and "the" there, condense
titles and eliminate superfuous adj
Jectlyes. And finally, in the wee
sma' hours, with head throbbinp.
eyes bedimmed and blinking, while
all the neighborhooi is wrapped in
the "arms of Murphy" (as the Irish
wit and would-be poet puts it), the
pencil pusher plods homeward, to lie
down--butnot to sleep, for tomorrow
may be publication day and sunrise
must find him at his desk rehashing
and reslashing the stuff he pored over
the night before: for has not some.
thing important bobbed up in the
latest papers at the last moment?
Room must be made for that, even
ii some of the type set has to be
thrown down or crowded over. Tim
orous man; he is quaking in his arc
tics Gust at this season., for the
thunder cloud will burst below as
soon as the tends in the lower re.
gions put in an appearance. The
chief is officially notified that the
new stuff connot be set: 'we are four
galleys over up now, and there in no
type In the cases." That two and IA
half column article of Swellhead's.
on the beauties of Kamcaatka which
he hopes sometime to visit and about
which ne has been reading, has done
the work. ltcrowds over until next
~eek's"outside, "and the Long Primer
type casesare bare because of it. "Put
this --latest News by Wire in Bre-
yier, Nonpareil or any old thing you |
can scrape up, even if it is from the
.osfaxs fu,<a <..oo - Al