The Topeka state journal., 1905-10-08

without doing any tramping, and are
content to travel by steam, like the rest
of US, is very large
once in a great while they are so
we'll nXed as regards this worlds
goods that they offer to pay to get the
letters printed. These my editor di-
vides into two classes plain idiots and
grafters, the latter being writers who
have an advertising string to their
writing who mean to give gFatuitOus
mention to this or that person. pro-
Ieet or commercial product, and de-
pend for their pay upon the person d
thing advertised. They get the short
est shrift of ALL so far as this editor
is concerned He sends them invari-
ably to the business manager of his
paper, knowing full well that he viii
charge full advertising rates for any
thing offered under such conditions,
and that the matter, when printed. Will
be 50 marked that the reader will know
it for advertising, as you may have
noticed, though there are papers
whose editors and managers some
times forget the marking.
All told. this editor gets travel let
fit TO print by the ton" he says, and
of a truth he does not speak with
much hyperbOle when he says it. The
trouble with the travel letter writer's IS
that they write much more common
place stuff about foreign lands than
they would think of writing about their
own. Thus, one of them. in a letter
I saw the other day about the Coli
scum at Rome, devoted a lot of space
to its dimensions. Now these figures
may he found in the scFooIbooIxs. lust
as may the figures showing the size Of
the capitol at Washington
A good letter might be written about
either of these buildings letter that
any general editor would be glad 20
buy and print, but it would have to
have som hing 1apr in If
value.
WOULD-BE NEWSPAPER HUMOR-
lists.
There is nothing which the average
editor welcomes more heartily than
copy that is really humorous He may
not need much of it, especially when
other things that must be printed are
crowding his pages, but he must have
some of it-eVen if he has to stel it.
Many editors. as YOU may have no.
uced, do this occasionally.
The editor I have mentioned says
that the whole world must know how
useful true humor is and. what IS
worse, to be prepared to furnish the
article. At all events this editor gets
alleged humor by the load 1t comes
+ in bales and rolls and boxes. Most of
/ it is from utterly unframed pens. and.
{ like the larger part of the contents CT
the humorous columns in the neWSpa-
! pers the bulk of It is stolen and gem
Z
1 On the whole, he rays. it is about the
most sorrowfuI sort of reading mat
/ ter ever put before the eyes of the suf-
/ fering manuscript buyer.
If the alleged humorous matter that
+ is rejected is much worse than some
that is printed. this editors view of is
merits is probably correct and in this
my readers are pretty sure to agree
with me. After the letters of travel
hends and the WseHld-be humorous
writer's come those desirous of writing
fiction and general articles. They all
run along parallel lines my editor says:
not one Of them has 8 new 4dea in a
year. and not one in a hundred would
be able to dress a new. idea IN in ner-
vous, interesting English if he were
/ fortunate enough to corral one Most
( Of those who essay fiction choose the
oldest. most hackneyed plots and tell
them in the dullests most haekneyed
! manner.
JUST AS GOOD" AS THE REAL
THING.
Ninety-nine in a hundred Of them
proclaim, when personally visiting the
! editor, that tae work offered is mod