do in looking after their contributors, without using the pen themselves. This keeps them fully employed if they do their work conscientiously. On some papers leading articles, when they have passed through the editorial hands, are so transformed that their authors hardly know them again. Some contributors have a good style and no information, others have knowledge and ideas, but cannot write. A good editor ought to be able to supply the deficiency in both cases. A certain leader writer was in the habit of laying down the rashest and most unjustifiable of propositions, which so annoyed his editor, that sometimes he found himself covertly rebuked in his own article. Thus, having originally written, "We do not hesitate to assert" that so-and-so is the case, he would on the following day have the pleasure of seeing in print the remark that "None but ignorant and thoughtless persons would venture to assert" the very same thing which he had so boldly affirmed in manuscript. But although bad leaders may often be made, with a little dexterity, into good ones, some are so bad as to be quite incorrigible. It was on one of these that an irritated editor, in returning it to the writer, made the memorandum : "Utterly destitute of point, and doesn't make three-quarters of a column." That matter of length, too, is often a source of sore trouble to the country editor, as some contributors never seem to know how much space their "copy" will fill in print, and padding out a short article is always an unsatisfactory business. With what joy a certain conscientious writer used to hear, after having given out his leader, page by page, that the article at last made, what the eccentric little head printer used to call, "the colyum fully," pronouncing the "u" in the last word as in "dull." Yet it is the propriet or rather than the editor who insists on having the full column,, and thus it was wittily said of a company of newspaper owners, who were, for the most part, small shopkeepers, that "they measured a leader with the yard wand."

Editors' troubles, however, are not confined to the vagaries of their leader-writers. .A good sub-editor is one of the most valuable, though too often one of the least appreciated, members of a newspaper staff; but an incompetent one is a perpetual source of annoyance to his superior. Of all the bad "subs" who ever plagued their editors, poor Mr. Duffer— as we will call him-was surely the worst. He was honest and hardworking enough, but hopelessly ignorant and slovenly, and what was peculiarly irritating, he had a sort of cheerful obstinacy with which, however gross his blunder might be, he would smilingly persist that he was right. Thus he once wrote "The Earl of Derby, M.P.," and, on being told that so to style a peer was incorrect, maintained, stoutly, that he was not so far wrong after all, as Lord Derby certainly was a member

of one of the Houses of Parliament ! It was his utter want of judgment, and his habit of so preparing his "copy" that it all stuck together, which compelled his chief to say to him one day, "Really, Mr. Duffer, if you are to continue to work for me, what you will have to do is to use more discretion and less gum." Not less troublesome, but in a different way, was Mr. Flashy, who required very careful watching, as he was apt to be flippant and ambitious, a sub-editor's worst and most dangerous faults. His editor was accustomed to write the " summary of news," a class of work which cannot be too soberly and plainly done; but being unable to come down to the office one night, he wrote to the sub-editor, requesting him to be kind enough to indict the summary, "without comedy and without comment."

It has already been remarked that in the country the editor is much more accessible to the outside public than is the case with the same class of journalists in town. All sorts of people knock at his door-that is when they condescend to that formality at all—and he must admit everybody, not knowing what great local personage he might offend by refusing audience to a stranger. Among his habitual tormentors is the "agent in advance" of a theatrical company, an official unknown in London but of great importance in the provinces; for he is the pioneer who goes before to engage rooms for the dramatic corps, to enlist local supernumeraries when required, to organize all arrangements at the theatre, to "bill the town" with flaming promises of the treat to come, and last, but not least, of all, to wait upon the local editor and make things pleasant with him. Not that the agent ever attempts to bribe or corrupt. He never imitates the audacity of the American theatrical tout, who, having invited an editor to attend a performance in which he was interested, and being promised that the entertainment would be duly noticed according to its merits, put his hand in his pocket and naïvely asked what there would be to pay for the prospective critique! The agent in advance, as a rule, confines himself to offers of "reserved seats" and enthusiastic laudations of the play to be performed and of the performers who are to play; although one of these enterprising gentlemen, being associated with an entertainment of a rather mediocre character, was shrewd enough to speak of it as being very bad indeed, with the result that the editor was so much better pleased with the performance than he expected to be, that he gave it a far more favourable notice than it would have otherwise received at his hands. Such people as the agent in advance, however, only turn up at intervals. It is the "local man" who is the editor's worst plague, and of this class the local "genius" is one of the most annoying specimens. Sometimes he is a poet, who brings his wretched

verses, and not unfrequently insists upon reading them aloud; who thinks he can always fall back on the paper of his native town when the popular periodicals reject his contributions, either with or without thanks; and who tells you that he does not know where his imagination comes from, and that he keeps a pencil and paper, together with a box of matches and a candle by his bedside, as he often feels obliged to get up in the middle of the night and write. Or it is a musical man, who composes songs and gives concerts, and who is perpetually calling to beg, if not to demand, preliminary paragraphs, or to complain that "local talent" is neglected. by the press, inasmuch as half a column of high praise was accorded to the London Italian Opera Company, whereas a short paragraph of cold recognition was all that he got after his own concert, when he himself played, and had the valuable assistance of Mr. Brown, Miss Jones, and the choir of the parish church.

In any sketch of the lighter side of newspaper life the reporter, of course, must not be forgotten, for of all grades of journalists he, perhaps, contributes most to the humours of his profession, either by his own acts or his experiences. Reporters are a hardworking, sober, intelligent set of men as a class, but we fear it must be acknowledged that it is of the "loose fish" of the order that the most amusing stories are to be told. Who has not heard of the shorthand-writer, who, being overcome by the good things supplied at a public dinner, jotted down his notes on the table-cloth? It was a similar unfortunate who came back to the office after a banquet in such a condition, that all his colleagues could get out of him was that "a little old gentleman with grey hair" had presided at the feast. That reporters are not always as well educated as they ought to be, considering the nature of their calling, is a matter of notoriety and of regret; but probably there are few so ignorant as the gentleman, who having to write a notice of a performance of the "Duchess of Malfi," said that it was one of Webster's regular sensational Adelphi pieces," or another, who referred to the phrase "He tempers the wind to the shorn lamb" as a "scriptural quotation." Very pushing energetic fellows are "our own reporters," though they get a rebuff sometimes, as, for instance, did that representative of a paper devoted to affairs of the turf, who, on presenting himself at a prison for the purpose of witnessing an execution, and saying that he was the reporter of the Sporting Mercury, was turned back with the remark, "Go away, sir, go away; this is not a sporting event!" Nor are reporters wanting in presence of mind, and few have ever made such a slip of the tongue as did one who, working for both a religious and a secular paper, applied for the privilege of the press at a theatre, and being asked what journal he represented, answered hastily, "The Christian News." A more characteristic example of the reporter's

"

ready wit is that of the stenographer who once sought a berth on the staff of a provincial daily, owned by an eminently respectable and rather straitlaced firm, whom we will call Messrs. Starchtie & Sons. He had an interview with the head of the house, and having been questioned closely as to his political opinions, experience, habits, and so forth, and having returned satisfactory answers, was told that he should hear further of the matter at a future time. Proceeding to the railway station, for he lived in an adjacent town, the reporter became suddenly aware that some one was running after him. He stopped, and found it was a messenger from the office he had just left. "I beg your pardon," said the envoy, "but there is one question which Mr. Starchtie forgot to ask you. He wishes to know what religious denomination you belong to?" "Religious denomination," replied the reporter meditatively, "humph-let me seeMessrs. Starchtie are United Presbyterians, are they not?" "Yes," was the reply. "Well, say I am a United Presbyterian." It need hardly be said that that young man got the situation he was seeking.

The narrator of the foregoing stories is painfully conscious that they only faintly illustrate the humours of press life, and that many better things have been said both by and of journalists, which he has forgotten; while from what he has heard he is assured that there must be a wealth of incident and anecdote floating about, which only wants collection to form a valuable contribution to that treasury of wit already so abundantly furnished by the bench, the bar, the church, and other professions. If these random jottings should tempt other journalists to preserve the characteristic stories incidental to their calling, which they may have picked up, they will not have been published in vain. No doubt members of the press are a sensitive and retiring class, who labour quietly in private, and refrain from personally courting the public eye; but their pursuit has become established and recognised as an honourable profession, and they have nothing to fear in allowing their readers to have a "peep behind the scenes," where they do their work so well. If stories of the bar, of the mess, of the vicarage, of the green room, of the studio, and of many more of the arcana of professional life, may be told with propriety, why not also stories of the newspaper office, so long as scandal is avoided, and no confidence is broken? Journalism, as an essentially intellectual avocation, ought to yield, out of its own recesses, its fair share of that harmless pleasantry, whence the world derives so much of its mental recreation. Nor let members of the press be afraid of a joke, now and then, at their own expense. Journalists tell so many stories about other people that they can well afford to tell a few about themselves.

E. J. Goodmran:

UNDER A CURSE.

I.

HE village of Lisdoon was once as pretty a place as any in all Ireland. It was not big enough to be called a town, and so to have fallen into decay; it was bigger than a "close," and so had a certain amount of pride in keeping

itself trim and clean.

In the way of public buildings, the village could boast of only two, the chapel on one of the outskirts, and the police barracks at the other end. Perhaps, however, the public-house in the centre of the place, with a broad green before the door, had as good a right as either to be called a "public" building. Certainly, though there was no great amount of drinking in Lisdoon, the visits to the public-house were more in number than those of both chapel and barracks combined.

In the yearnow twenty years ago, Lisdoon was at its very brightest. Never before had there been so many weddings and merrymakings, never before had the public-house done so good a trade.

"Yis," said the landlord, as he stood at the door one evening, when the glory of August was flushing all the sky, and setting the west in a blaze, "Yis, it's been the best summer for bisniss I've known for twenty years. An' it's not all over yit, there's Honor Blake an' Tom Burke been married yisterday, and they're comin' here to-morrow to hould their bride's play."

"To-morrow!" replied the publican's crony, the schoolmaster, who stood just outside the door. "To-morrow's Sunday. Doesn't the priest object to these merrymakings on that day ?"

"Yis, of course, that's his business. But Tom Burke an' Phil Sheridan, hez best man, hez set their hearts on to-morrow, an'-an'-let the priest go whistle."

The schoolmaster gave a comical twist of his face.

"He'll be whistling about some of their heads with his riding whip, I'll go bail," he said, with a laugh. "The last bride's play you had here on a Sunday he said would be the last, if he were to die for it. And you know Father Haurahan isn't like poor old Father Magee, that threatened but never performed, and let the boys do just as they liked, so long as they didn't go beyond getting drunk and breaking a head or two."

VOL. I.

29