The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1905-06-03

may aspire? These questions are per-
tinent. They are asked by city girls and
country girls, by girls on the farm and
girls who have grown up In thriving
communities where nine women out OF
ten expect to be self-supporting.
In the first place, the girl who would
become a newspaper woman must not
be afraid of hard work. She must pos
sess good health, good temper and good
spirits. In beginning. her foot will be
on the lowest round of the ladder. Ii
accepted as reporter her hours will be
irregular, and her pay at first will be
small She will probably write at space
rates, and these are regulated by the
locality and the paper on which she is
employed.
might say, too, that ability to write
is essential, and that she who can see
quickly what is interesting about her,
who can describe IT accurately, with
piquant flavor or dash of humOr, and
above all she who can write good, brief,
telling paragraphs, will find herself
among the wanted.
A trustworthy memory is indispens-
able, and as well good manners are never
thrown away. since they give woman
access and ingress where otherwise she
would be denied. Because the hours are
long and irregular, and because a wom-
an must have courage enough to go
wherever she is sent, health. repeat, is
a requisite. The newspaper woman asks
nothing by way of special courtesy for
her sex, though she need fear no rude
ness on the part of editors or fellow re-
porters, men in newspaper work being
almost uniformly courteous and cOnsid-
crate in their treatment of the women
who serve on the staff with them.
A woman reporter must be imper-
sonal Her dress should by no means be
mannish, but it should be trim, neat and
unobtrusive. In the streets of a,great
city she is safe by night or by day, quite
as safe in the hours between midnight
and dawn as at high noon, if she simply
goes about her work without a
thought of herself or the anticipation
of insult
A prominent newspaper woman has
said: Men like womanly women, but
still they don't want any clinging-vine
business about a newspaper Office. If
woman will only be natural and use
common sense, she will get along all
right, but if she does otherwise, she may
complain as some would-be newspaper
women do, that newspaper men treat
them badly"
Just as soldier is Obliged to obey or
ders so the successful newspaper wom-
an must be willing to do what she is told,
go where she is sent, brave all kinds of
weather, and make light of every trifiing
Inconvenience. BY way of preparation,
she will need good common school
education, the ability to write legible
hand, to punctuate properly, to spell
correctly, and to express herself in
good English. This last is absolutely
imperative. Do not for a moment under
rate English grammar and good SPELL
Ing, if you aspire to earning living as
q newspaper woman.
top in this profession, as in any other,
Is the price of personal conservation.
The work must be put before pleasure,
before social engagements, before Wis
its to dear ones at household ami
versaries. A great deal of ones self. of
ones vitality must be lavishly given If
one would earn more than a very sub
ordinate place in ones profession. If
assigned to Office work, Office hours must
be strictly observed, and nothing in the
days routine must be considered I'M
important. Take, for example, the
never-ceasing flood of correspondence
that comes to the woman's department
of newspaper. In two instances re-
Gently, have known young women to
be dismissed from very attractive desks,
where they received a generous weekly
wage, because they did not and would
not understand that every letter and
scrap of paper which passed into their
hands was valuable. One OF these girls
apologized for tearing up and waste
basketing letters which it was her duty
to acknowledge, on the ground that they
were nothing but rubbish. The other,
| equally unaware of the value of the in
dividual subscriber, pigeon-holed letters
for weeks, and then declared that she
felt no interest in them, and could not
be bothered by people so silly as the
writers. Neither of these young women
at all grasped the fact that in Office
work nothing is unimportant.
The girl who would succeed as q
musician must be contented to devote
years of arduous study and incessant
practice to the jealous art she loves.
She who would become designer or an
illustrator must equally spend years Of
her precious youth in mastering details,
and learning the essentials of her call
Ing. have known young woman
without previous training, with nothing
but clever brain, keen eye, and the
ability to write, to come from her home
in the far SOUTH and in city like New
York reach the position of assistant
editor on weekly paper, in less than
IL months. have known another
young girl, this time from the west, who
| discovered in herself aptitudes which
| she -lcied might be utilized in news