The Press
COUNTRY PRESS.
The prophets of evil who for years have been predicting that the county
newspapers were to be swallowed up by the gigantic monopolies of the metropolis,
have missed their mark. Never before was the country press so strong, so
influential, so repectable, as today; and never before was its success and
prosperity so well assured. If the metropolitan press had had any influence
in shaping the career of the country journal, it has been beneficial rather
than detrimental, in creating a thirst for news that the former could not
supply. The man who takes a city political or religious journal becomes
much more eager for home news than he who does not read at all. He finds
that one does not answer for the other. He would as soon think of making
his overcoat do duty as hat and boots, as seeking local intelligence in
a New York daily. The home organ has a distinct mission of its own, which
no other can supply; and the more journalism advances, the stronger becomes
its growth and the purer and better its influence. - Seattle Tribune.
- Oregon City Enterprise, July 30, 1875.
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The Indiana Editor's Thanks.
An Indiana editor lays down his shears for a few minutes to write a double-leaded
editorial in which he plaintively remarks: "We are the recipient of
half a peck of nice onions, two watermelons and a bottle of ginger beer
from one of our subscribers. The gifts were like the shadows of a rock in
a weary land. We are glad some one remembered us in the midst of our labors
and cares, and evinced that remembrance in so delicate a manner. We doat
on onions and love melons dearly, and so long as the fragrance of the former
and the gripes of the latter linger about us we shall hold the kind donor
in remembrance. These little acts inspire us to renewed exertions, but our
subscription price will remain the same."
- Daily Oregon Herald, Portland, Sept 10, 1872.
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Says the Austin Reveille: We can stand to be accused of having feet like
burial caskets, and can bear to have our ears compared to the flippers of
a sea-lion; but to have our girl abused makes us mad. The 'pen and scissors'
man of the Enterprise has this cruel fling at her: "The lady-love of
the Reese River Reveille now slides down hill shouting, Track! Track! She
uses one sled for her seraphic form and two for her feet." This is
a wicked slander; she only uses one sled, and there is but 900 feet of lumber
in it, and she rides on it feet and all, except when she goes "belly
gutter" and then her feet only stick out three or four yards. A man
who would malign a poor girl like that deserves to have his ears cut off
with his own scissors and made into sleeve-buttons.
- The Montanian, Virginia City, Montana Territory, Feb 3, 1876
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A country editor received the following: "Dear sir, - I have looked
carefully and patiently over your paper for six months for the death of
some individual I was acquainted with, but as yet not a single soul I care
anything about has dropped off; you will please to have my name erased."
- Daily British Colonist, Victoria, B. C., Mar 29, 1876.
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NEWSPAPER ANTIQUARIAN. - The Hon. Samuel Smith, of Peterborough, New Hampshire,
died lately at the age of seventy-six. He has been for many years a diligent
collector of files of newspapers. He had files of seventy different newspapers
of the United States. At his death his collection amounted, it was supposed,
to about one thousand volumes.
- National Intelligencer, Washington, D. C., May 31, 1842
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NEWSPAPER CHANGES.
Our friend and confrere, Joseph T. Adams, the editor and publisher of the
Daily Centinel and Gazette, and its appendages, the semi-weekly Commercial
Gazette, semi-weekly Columbian Centinel, and semi-weekly New England Palladium,
announces in the last number of the the Centinel and Gazette, that all those
papers have been united with the Daily Advertiser and the Chronicle and
Patriot.
This announcement makes us feel like a very old fellow. We have actually
been obliged to think of our age, for we remember well, when the Centinel,
Gazette, Palladium, Chronicle and Patriot, were independent papers, published
each from its own separate establishment. But the times change - and oh,
how rapidly they do change! Where are we of the newspaper world now? instead
of those old familiar names, we have - but gentle reader, you know what
we have - new,new,new newspapers, and new times. So it will be through the
whole of the world's progress - one constant system of crowding in and crowding
out.
Another newspaper change has occurred, at New York, the venerable time-honored
Gazette, of that city - the oldest paper in the city or State - has been
merged in the Journal of Commerce.
- Boston Transcript, May 1, 1840.
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A COUNTRY EDITOR.- The sprightly editor of the Lowell Courier thus, bee-like,
draws the honey of consolation from the thistles which be-strew the path
of the country editor:
He rises on Monday morning, goes to his office up some back stairs, lifts
the latch, keeps no key, for who would ever rob a country editor? what use,
then of his door being locked. In the middle of the room stand his "cases"
and his press. Up in one corner a pile of paper wet down ready to work off.
On the galley are a few columns of a story written by "Mr. Arthur,"
"Mrs. Stephens," or some other big folks, and which he has extracted
from the Ladies' Companion, the Ladies' Book, the Pearl, the Lowell Offering,
or some other first rate publication. (Perhaps the editors sent him a copy
of their Magazine, for publishing their prospectus every year, which is
worth in labor more than the subscription price twice over. There is a great
amount of imposition practiced in this way.) He finishes setting up his
story, and a few agricultural items, which together with two or three columns
of quack advertisements, go to make up the outside of his paper. This is
put in the "chase," locked up, the form put in the press, and
a proof struck off. He then takes his pen, sits down on the three-legged
chair, and reads his proof, marks his errors, and then corrects them in
the form.
Next morning with the assistance of his young satan, a wild devil-may-care
sort of being about 14, with a smoothed face, and an independent swagger
in his gait - a great favorite with the young misses, and who can whip any
boy of his size in the town, he commences working off the outside. He gets
off a token, rests a moment, and wipes the sweat from his forehead, and
goes at it again. Probably he prints a thousand copies. The inside is made
up of "original and selected items," as the Manchester Memorial
has it, though generally more selected than original. By Thursday night
he has his paper all set up, and on Friday morning he works it off. His
devil then makes a pot of paste, and folds the papers, while the editor
does up the seals and writes the superscription. About midnight his labor
is over; his papers at the stage-office or the post-office, and ready to
start for their destined quarters early next morning. Saturday morning the
editor sleeps rather longer than usual; and the devil has his face a shade
or two cleaner, and he has the outward appearance of a young man disposed
to take a day to himself, annd is ready for a cruise, "with his pocket
full of rocks," as they say in Arkansas. Saturday is what may be called
a loafing day, in which but little work is done; blessed be he who'd "make
that little less." The country editor requires one day to himself.
Thou art a good fellow, and we love thee.
- The New World, New York, Jan 21, 1843
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An exchange declares that a man who will read a newspaper three or four
years without paying for it will pasture a goat on the grave of his grandfather.
- Detroit Free Press.
Read and passed in concurrence. - Boston Post.
- New North-West, Deer Lodge, Montana Terr., Nov 1, 1878.
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A Nebraska editor is writing rhymes. Here is his latest production:
The man who cheats the printer
Out of a single cent,
Will never reach the heavenly land
Where old Elijah went.
- Amador Weekly Ledger, Jackson, Calif., Apr 11, 1874.
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A SHREWD EDITOR. - At a Welch celebration in New York, Dr. Jones told the
following amusing anecdote: The speaker said that editors were like other
shrewd men who have to live with their eyes and ears open. He related the
story of an editor who started a paper in a new village in the West. The
town was infested with gamblers, whose presence was a source of annoyance
to the citizens, who told the editor that if he did not come out against
them they would not patronize his paper. He replied that he would give them
a "smasher" next day. Sure enough his next issue contained the
promised smasher. On the following morning the redoubtable editor, with
scissors in hand, was seated in his sanctum cutting out news, when in walked
a large man with a club in his hand and demanded to know if the editor was
in. "No sir," was the reply, "he has stepped out; take a
seat and read the papers; he will return in a minute." Down sat the
indignant man of cards, crossed his legs with his club between them, and
commenced reading a paper. In the meantime the editor quietly vamosed down
stairs, and at the landing below he met another excited man with a cudgel
in his hand, who asked if the editor was in. "Yes, sir," was the
prompt response. "You will find him seated up stairs reading a newspaper."
The latter on entering the room with a furious oath commenced a violent
assault upon the former, which was resisted with equal ferocity. The fight
was continued until they both rolled to the foot of the stairs and a pounded
each other to their hearts' content.
- Semi-Weekly Telegraph, Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, Oct 18, 1866.
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A Virginia editor has come to the conclusion that a man might as well undertake
to hold himself at arm's length and then turn a double somersault over a
church steeple, as to attempt to publish a magazine that will suit everybody.
- Bedrock Democrat, Baker City, Ore., Dec 20, 1871.
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A DEAD SUBSCRIBER.
A subscriber for years being sad in arrears,
Still neglecting his bill for to pay,
To the editor said- "Unless I am dead,
I shall pay you on Christmas day."
The time flew by and the debtor was shy,
But the editor thought what he said;
In his paper next week the truth he did speak,
And announced his subscriber as dead!
- The Odd Fellow, Boston, Sept 1, 1847.