The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-08-13
SOME VARIED USES
MADE OF CLIPPINGS
One Million Dollar Concern
Built Up on Them
VOLUMES OF HISTORY MADE
Many Trades Helped and cranks Fed
on the Slips Cut From News
papers by Girls With
Memories.

From the New York Sun.
Ninety newspapers a day is the task
of the girls who read for one of the oldest
clipping press bureaus in New York, and
they read every item in each paper, in
Guiding the advertising. Moreover, as
they read they carry the names, wants
and wishes of 5000 subscribers in their
minds and underseore the salient word
in every item which should go to a GUS
TONER
This bureau has certain rules In hiring
its readers. 1t takes to elderly persons,
no person who says she is fond of reading
or has made scrapbooks all her life, and no
school teacher It wants no literary taste
at its reading desks, and not too much
education.
1t wants persons who will read mech
anically. with lightning speed and with
no interest in what they read aside from
the word they are looking for. After
trying all sorts of people, the type found
most satisfactory Is the girl who has
left school at IA to go to work in fac
tory or dry goods store. in either OF
| those places she would get from So to s.
week. In the clipping bureau she may
run her wages up 10 $40 a week, as the
star reader of this bureau has done,
and average $12 ors15 a week, as most OF
them do.
All of them work by the piece, receiv-
ing so much for every clipping marked.
Sometimes they are a little too mech
anical, as when the patron who sub
scribes for everything concerning banks
gets choice items concerning sand banks,
but it is better to them that way than
to have them getting interested in what
they read and lingering over their task.
Eight hundred dallies day are read in
this office. and In addition every publi-
LEGATION, weekly and monthly, In the
United States which has a circulation Of
1900 making 5000 in all. The amount of
surface information which these girls
get to carry around in their heads con-
corning the matters in which the 5000
subscribers are interested Is remarkable.
The strangest and most unexpected scraps
| of knowledge will crop up among curly
| headed fifteen-year-oI whom one would
not accuse of an idea beyond chocolate
and peel<aboo waists
Look for Queer Things.
These girls read for all sorts of queer
| things There is badge and button
house capitalized at 81 00o coo which has
built its business in the last twelve years
on the clippings furnished it by these
girls 1t takes everything relating to the
| organization OF SD1lellcSt OF lHciI pdIeiue1
professions, meetings. 1t gets 1000 items
a day and its bill is $400 a week. Its
| literature goes to the addresses provid-
ed in these clippings, and its publicity
| scheme has proved good.
A house that makes church bells takes
everything relating to new churches, APP
preparations for new bells, sc. Another
firm has for years taken everything relat-
| ing TO scales. A company insuring
against burglars, which took everything
relating to bank robberies for twelve
years, recently cancelled its order, as
1t found that these was no profit in this
branch.
Society news In the papers Is carefully
clipped for jewelers., florists, stationers
furniture dealers and hundreds of other
merchants. The most profitable branch
of the business Is the commercial, but
the largest number of customers is made
up Of those who subscribe for personal
mention. Personal vanity plays little
part in this, however. It is dictated
mostly by commercial reasons.
On this list are playwrights. actors,
prize fighters, politicians. authors and all
sorts of men in public life. Some of them
are anxious for newspaper mention and
some are anxious for its absence.
The income from this source is extreme
ly irregular. 1t has happened that a man
would not have an item for months and