Year: 1879

L
| The majority of people imagine that il is
the simplest thing in the world to edit \
newspaper. A man may have grave doubts
about his talcpt for public speaking: NAV
freely admit that he cannot turn a tune or
recognize one when turned by anybody else;
may confess that he is no poet, not much of
scholar, and nothing of an artist; but
there is no creature so poorspritcd as to
avow his incapacity to edit a ncwspapcr-
On the contrary, this is work to which
every man seems to have a manifest CALL
No matter what his actual business in life
may be-preachcr, lawyer, physician, baker
or candle.stick maker--ho he's secret fam
tsy ;haeif he only bad n chance he caaia
make newspaper little bit spicier and
lvelicr than anything in the shape of a
public journal that has ever come in his
way. This is one of the most amusing and
universal weaknesses of modern times
The number of people who arc infected by
1t is known only to publishers, Just as the
extent to which opium eating is practiccd
is realized only by druggists and physicians.
lhe drawers and waste-baskess of cycry
leading newspaper Office in the country
overflow with evidences of the ambition and
harmless vanity of the vast public who
scr'bhlc by stealth and patiently toll over
reams of composition which nobody can be
induced to print.


1t must be admitted that thcro is some.
thing cnticing and cnviablc in editorial life.
as 1t appears to the outside world. The de-
light OF getting into print for the first time
10 v"o OF tho kccncst cnioymonts. What
therefore, both men ana women reason 70
themselves, must be the pleasure of that
happy man who daily feeds the public with
his wisdom, and whose smallest scribbling
finds its way into type without criticism or
delay But this reasoning is altogether
unsound. The editor does not look at
things exactly in the same roscn.c Light
The bright colors seen by Other eyes have
become to his little cloud.d. The fresh
ness, the exquisite charm of seeing his re-
Elections in print, has ong since vanished.
He writes sometimes painfully and under
pressure, often har,ssed by a thousand petty
vcxations, and net unfrcqucntly with aching
head and wea,y hand. His work is, of ali
work, the post wearing, the most akin to
treadmill irudgcry, and the most exhaust
ing, botl to body and brain. The call for


He must writo. ''H he Hr4 4mGsst also sadafseehc
most contemplate and continual criticisms
must bear patiently "to be esteemed dull
when he cannot be witty, and to be applau-
dcd for wit when he knows that he has been
dull" Every blockhcad who buys his pa
per feels that he has purchase ID right to
dictate the manner in which it shall lie con-
Quoted, to crticise sharply everything that
appears in it, and to elevate its tone" with
his own carping lucubrations, fairly written
out and enclosed in a note for immediate
publication, signed "a Subscriber" can
Old Patron" or can Earnest Wcllwisher"
If you were to ask this modest friend to
cut you coat, or measure you for pair of
boots, nc would Indignantly reply that that
was not his trade, that he knew nothing
about it and would not attempt it. But the
diffdcncc which shrinks from the shears
and coyly draws back from the awl and lap
stone, boldly grasps the pen and undertakes
to illuminate and instruct the world
Breeches and shoes require art, experience,
reflection in their making-political essays
flow spontaneously from the most added
pate, or can be pumped out of it by sheer


hand labor, without the vulgar appliances
of study, thought an4 knowledge. Such
is life !-Bdhimore Gazette.