The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-08
SOME TROUBLES OF THE COPY READER NOvices Sometimes Submit
 Queer Manuscripts RIBBONS AND PERFUME One Woman Writer Wept on the Edi. tors Desk When He Tried to Tell Her Kindly How to Improve
 Her Manuscript.
RIBBONS AND PERFUME
From the Washington Post.

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 Now don't add yourself to the list of bromides and tell me it must be such interesting york; said young magazine reader to a friend. They sat at the desk 1 of woman whose duty 1t is to do first l reading for a magazine that buys many 1 short stories.
 And it isn't always the manuscripts themselves that are as interesting as the oddities who submit them in person. But with the combination we have some queer things here in the office.
 "on Monday mornings I think all the world aspires to literary fame, and I figure it out that Sunday Is a sort of sending out day with a great many writers. There's one man down in Ten nessee whose manuscripts I can almost smell in the Monday morning mail never fail to have at least one story from him on Monday. It smells fearfulv of cigarettes. I suppose he steeps himself in cigarettes while he is mailing out his piles of rejected manuscripts
 And while I'm thinking of odors, there is another abomination to the reader in the same line-that's the perfumed story. As rule it comes from a woman Be- lieve me, I'm telling you the truth when l say there was manuscript here last | week-I passed 1t all over the office, 1t was so queer-that was done up like a l Christmas box. It was typewriter on | lavender paper, in purple ink and tied with purple bows all down one side Then there was fragrance of violets from the ] envelope when it was opened that scent | ed up my entire desk until I was accused of using too much perfume. The writer, l suppose, wanted to convey to us her l esthetic feeling, and can assure you she never could have done it through the poem on that paper. Oh. it was awful
 The BedraggIed Manuscripts. | We get so many soiled and bedraggled | manuscripts that 1t makes us almost sor- l " for the writers of them in their pa- tience and hope in sending them out so | many times. One or two writers send us manuscripts that plainly have been | worked upon while they partook of their l frugal repast. There are egg marks, cof- ] fee prints, and even at times unmstaka- ble signs of c1aret on the paper
 "There are so many ways resorted to | by struggling writers who live far from the metropolis to ascertain whether or not their precious stories have been read. ! For instance, they will alternate the pages, expecting us, in order to read the story, to straighten them out Person. ally, when I find a manuscript SO ar ranged I put it In the envelope and send it back as quickly as possible without so much as a glance at it. Others of the doubting variety turn pages upside down here and there. and still others stick cor ners to gether so as to find out whether they are getting a square deal or not. The general idea among unsuccessful writers is that only favorites get a read ing, and that they, writing perhaps the great American novel, are left to strug- gle on without so much as criticism. There isn't any one in the world so mis- treated as the struggling author, &C., cording to himself.
 "There is one man out west-rm sure he is demented or on the verge of it. who sends his manuscripts done up In a tin box built for the purpose. It is like two square pie tins that fit into each oth- CT and make a fiat holder for the man. uscript. He sends it by express and re- l quests that We return 1t the same way. collect. If he only knew he is spending twice, yes, three and four times much money to carry it back and forth in that outlandish fashion as he probably will ever get for his story.
 "One of the freakiest manuscripts I ever saw came rolled up in tube. It was written on sheets of ordinary type writer paper, but each sheet-there were 27-was pasted to the foregoing one, until it reached twice around the office when 1t was unrolled. It was next to im- possible to read, and hopeless to roll up again What must have been in the mind of the person who sent 1t?
 "We get any number of letters asking us not to sign their real names,' be- cause the stories are true and they don't want to get into trouble Others give us fecfO to change their stories if we care to- Still others assure Us that we must take their stories because they are true
 From the sort of writer who tries to sell us his manuscript because he is blind or lame or very much in need we jump, perhaps with the next envelope we pick up, to the one who would con vey to us the idea that he has written for the best magazines in the country and never takes less than cents a word for his stuff.
 Many of the writers who send man uscrpt hand written inform that if we buy 1t we may expect the next one to be typewritten. All they need is the encouragement-an the pay. Some of these persons cannot spell the simplest words nor do they have the first idea of story telling. And as for punctuation well, they are as strangers to the word! What I can't understand is, how they ever get Ln6 HOtlOH lHdt tley SdH Nllle.
 Weeps on Editors Desk.
 "One pathetic little case came under my notice not long ago when a woman wrote us that she had tried to be dress maker; she had gone out to do days work and she had been a nurseglrl, but having failed miserably at all of these vacations she aspired to be an author Would we tell her how to begin?
 And some of the persons who bring in their work personally almost make me cry. Some of them are so old and feeble that 1t seems a shame that they should be out alone. Others, for lack of stamps or car fare, have walked to the office with their pitifu little offerings, and they are so woefully in need of encour- agement-and yet so undeserving from mertorious standpoint-that I don't know what to do. Really, I'd rather have six teeth filled than go out to see some of them
 "There was one girl, a very pretty little thing, who came here one day to see one of the editors. She had left story with him and she wanted to talk to him about it. Well. she was very pret- ty and the editor was not busy and he saw her, Her story seemed to appeal to his risibles, and he is a very frank. not to say brusque, westerner, this editor Tn a few of his choicest phrases he told her what was the matter with her story Man Ike he did not see the tears rising and before he had finished she had burst