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About Blackshear news. (Blackshear, GA.) 1878-18?? | View Entire Issue (Sept. 9, 1880)
44 THE IDEAL NEWSPAPER.” Bitraeti from a Speech Delivered by Charles M. Palrman at «he Annual Meet* tnu of the Slew York State Frew As¬ sociation In Troy. The face of a newspaper should be made bright and checrlul and It should have a distinct resemblance of its own. If you are acquainted with it you should he able to pick it out of a thousand. You should know it as you do your neighbor. This personal appearance should be a fixture. Of course the newspaper, like the man. must put on a new dress occasionally, but there should be no violent changes in attire. It should always present the same general appearance. I say you should know your news¬ paper- It is difficult, doubtless, for the unpracticed eye to tell one paper Ihom another by merely looking at the lace of the type. But the printer will do it. Of a hundred papers that he knows he will pick out any one he wants simply without by a looking glance at its head, general contour, at its or stopping almost band to read a word it says. He will it to you in the dark. He will do more than that. You may cut out Jong, a piece not more than two inches anywhere which from there the shall body of the paper whatever upon to distinguish It be from nothing other similar piece of and he wifi any tell from what paper, it. It you paper you cut is no guess work. He knows to a cer¬ tainty. justice with He will swear to it in a court of no more doubt or hesita tion than you would have in saying that you saw a train of cars standing at the depot yesterday. A bank teller will de¬ nounce a counterfeit as far as his eyes can see the paper. A shoemaker will pick out a pair of boots which he has made from a thousand others, all of which you would say were precisely alike. You can’t deceive the tailor as tc who made the coat which is on your back. The small boy about the railroad depot, when he hears the whistle afar off, will tell you that is No. 6 Northern Central. There is an intuition about all these things which I do not pretend to Jathom or explain. I state the fact, be¬ cause what I said about the certainty of knowing one newspaper from another, by simply seeing its countenance, might •eem attention improbable, if I did not also call How your to other similar things. the face of a newspaper may have a pleasant and cheerful look, or ft may be dull and forbidding. When beauti¬ things fully printed, the most commonplace will be read with pleasure, while the genius of Shakespeare and Dickens could not illumine the pages of miser¬ able mechanical work. A handsomely with printed and carefully arranged paper an indifferent editor, will outstrip In circulation and surpass in reputation a botched job in the press, with the mest brilliant of writers. There cannot be a good newspaper without mechani¬ cal excellence- There may be poor ones with mechanical excellence, but there cannot be a good one without it. It is an infallible test. There may be good taste without newspaper ability, but there cannot be newspaper ability with¬ out beautiful good taste. A beautiful thing, in fascination print, is a joy forever. The which belongs to the face of a handsome type, like efiarity, covers a multitude of sms. Even children in a primary the bright school will hang eagerly oter pages of the toy book, when neither argument nor coaxing will fix their eyes on a dull, dead black wall of letters. We are only children of a larger they growth, and are quite as exacting as in demanding beautiful things for our comfort and convenience. We are educated to believe in the power of the press. Its influence can scarcely It is the be rated at too high a standard. lever which in modern times moves the world. That which the ancient philosopher declared he could do if he had something to stand upon, the press does by its own intrinsic force. It is true the old philosopher had refer¬ ence to which physical substance, and the power he sought was mechanical. But it is not in human strength, either mental or physical, to add to or take from one jot or tittle of the nnseen yet mijhty holds and omnipotent power which this earth in its orbit, The in fluence of the press is not with sub¬ stance. It has not moved mountains. They prise are all here still. Yet the enter¬ ot man under the enlightening in¬ fluence of the press has tunneled moun¬ tains and bridged them with iron ways, that the newspaper might go on the wings of the wind to the uttermost pa^s of the earth. It has spanned the sea with the electric spark, that the newspaper the might gather the news on instant at home and abroad. It has made all human knowledge simultane¬ ous in all parts of the glo^e. It has an¬ nihilated space and abolished time. The newspaper is ubiquitous. It is every¬ has where, home in every man’s home, for a man no who has no newspaper. He may have a place to stay, and so do the Digger Indians, but there can be no home without a newspaper. There can be no general diffusion ol knowledge without it. It is ligui au«l life in the world. It moves tu* world in all its enterprises, in all its great Christian philanthropies, in all its ma esty of wealth and power. In olden times, in the days when our Revolu¬ tionary lives, their fathers were laying down their fortunes and their sacred honor for the establishment of that free system of government which their sons have been patriotic enough to main¬ tain, the press, as it now exists, was an almost unknown institution. It was a factor then, as it is now, in arousing the people but in tc noble far and different patriotic pur¬ poses, a There and less effective way. were no great re¬ volving printed presses throwing out their sheets by the thousand, as snow¬ flakes flutter from the clouds. There was no spider-web net-work of rail¬ roads taking them up damp from the press, and scattering them through hour. every city There and hamlet lines at the breakfast were no of telegraph penetrating land, gathering to every nook and corner in the every scrap of in¬ formation, and concentrating it daily and nightly in the lap of the newspa¬ per. just Things went They slower, but they took went them assure. time. got There itall, but it more were fewer people, there were less and sim¬ pler wants, there were less jostling and there was less hurry. But there was iust much as virtue. much intelligence It and just as was not diffused as it is now. The people were not uni¬ versally Education intelligent as they are now. was not common as it is now. The position of an editor is one of the greatest responsibility. fined His audience is con¬ to no sect or creed. It is not cramped up in any public hall, or hem¬ med within the pews of cathedral or church. His voice is not stayed by county lines. Ife cannot see his people. He cannot feel fweir responsive touch. He must write the truth and trust to the power of truth. He sits in his sanctum and sends forth his thought on the wings of the wind. He speaks to the people, to the pulpit, to the bar, to the congress and to the president. He is greater than these, for all these look to him for information and counsel. The editor who respects himself, who knows his profession, and is equal to it, stands on a higher He eminence is the than the prince conception or pope. leader, and, if his the ruler of is public large enough, may become conception. Editors are born, not made. You cannot do doctors, grind them out in heaps as you There is or college lawyers, or clergymen. no where they are taught. them There is no curriculum for of to study. There There are no professors and newspapers. there degrees are for no diplom as are no an editor. ordinary Perhaps I schools should say that none of the in which other profes¬ sions are taught, answer for 1 the new s paper. The best school is the printing office. The best teacher is the click of the type and the atmosphere of the com¬ posing taught room. The tact of an editor can¬ not be at an academy. There are no books or masters to follow. Like the artist, the editor must have genius, and genius is not borrowed or taught. But though you cannot teach editors in schools or academies, you can teach boys. And after you have taught the boy in school, office. you may teach the editor in a printing But be careful not to insert him at the wrong end of ttie shop. and Start the him lye brushes, down among the roll¬ ers and fie will work his way out to the sanctum. When he gets there he will know liow to stay there. But if you start him at the sanc¬ tum, the probabilities are that he will soon find himself in the cellar. It is one of the evils of our times that not only with with regard all to this, but professions', equally regard to trades and the young men are unwilling to begin at the bottom. The grades of a printing office should be inexorable as the grades of an army. There should be no re¬ movals except for cause, and no pro¬ motions except for merits. The history of the newspaper press proves the posi¬ tion I here take. The best, the ablest and most successful editors this land has produced came up from the rule and the composing stick. I have known scores of tramping jour printers who had every qualification for brillian success in journalism, except the one of steady habits, men of wide learning, of sparkling genius, and commanding in¬ tellect. And I never yet saw a strictly educated man who was fit for an editor. They are too and starchy and stiff. They learned are too nice precise. They are too would and profound. die in A profound news¬ paper a week. Two things are certainly and equally fatal to a newspaper, But I think of ignorance the two it and profundity. stand igno¬ can rance the better, for there are a great many people who are ignorant, and very few who are profound. Daniel Webster once undertook to write an editorial for a newspaper. It was seven columns long and solid with statesman¬ ship and wisdom. But the editor ad¬ vised him to ueliver it in Congress It and let the newspaper off. sometimes happens that a schoolmaster oat of a job, or ambitious of fame, seeks laurels and cash in the editorial sanctum. These are the worst failures in the whple lot. They invariably run out their tongues when they write, use ruled paper, dot all their i’s, cross all their rs, and parse every sentence be¬ fore it goes to press. They monthly are designed to succeed better on or quarterly which publications, or those come cut onee a year, than on the daily press. If anything is calculated editor, it is to worry the pa¬ tience ol an to see a school¬ master laboring interlineations, over a paragraph. The erasures and the stop¬ ping and starting, the tearings up and beginnings dictionary, again, the look consultations of the the wise at the wall, the doubt about grammar, and the greater doubt about ideas, are fearful to behold. I state an exact truth when I say that 1 have seen some of these edu cated hours gentlemen spend two precious in trying to put a simp le state ment in a paragraph of ten li nes, and fail. A surplus of nr ammar kills them, And yet the editor must not fail in grammar. His sentences must be clear cut', precise and perfect. But he must do it without exertion, and with the same ease and freedom that he would engage in conversation. This faculty he gets when he goes through the grades. He cannot bring it with nim from any other profession. There are possible exceptions, ingly but they are rare, exceed¬ rare, and only prove the rule. The shoemaker had better stick to his last, the schoolmaster to his school and the editor to his sanctum. No man can be an editor who does not under¬ stand all the details of his business. He must be competent to fill any gap in any place how at any moment. He must know to do all that is needed to be on a newspaper. He must be able write a leader or a paragraph at moment’s notice, or without any at all. He must be a man of quick per¬ ception, of prompt decision and force character. He must be a leader. must command the ship. Tom Corwin’s Reply to Crary. its Congress apedies, had its comedies as well it and the leading wis Thomas Corwin, a Western from Ohio, who was a type of culture and a born He was a middle-sized, somewhat man, with pleasing manners, a head, sparkling hazel eyes and a plexion sions—as so he dark used that on several to relate with glee—he was supposed to be of descent. “ There is no need of working,” said he, “for,whenever I not support would myself in Ohio, all I have to do be to cross the river give myself up to a Kentucky trader, be taken south and sold for field hand.” He always had a ready to illustrate the subject of a versation, and the dry manner in he enlivened his speeches by witticisms, without a smile on his stolid countenance, was irresistible. His greatest effort was el reply he made to Mr. Crary, O who had undertaken to criticise military ability of General John Quincy Adams went over to Corwin’s desk and advised him to ply; without that he success, at first, saying Balaam’s was “something ass—he could never speak less kicked into it.” The next noon, however, he did reply and speech, as a model of humorous has never since been equaled at capitol. His description of Mr. as he appeared on parade as a general, and after the fatigues of muster, when treating his brigade watermelons and whisky at a grocery store, as the ancient heroes suaged their thirst from the skulls licious their slaughtered enemies, was a the history piece of of satire. General Then Corwin to Harrison, patriotic' gave services an eloquent with picture of force. No member of Congress received such personal from a speech, and Mr. Crary never covered from Corwin’s Even at his home 'the farmers offered him watermelons in their accompanied by quotations from win’s speech. He retired from life an extinguished orator Monthly. The trees on the trail toward are all blazed with printer’s ink, every Modem guide-board reads “ Argo. Finish Thy Work. Finish thy work, the time Is short; The sun is in the west; The night is coming down—till then Think not of rest. Yes, finish all thy work, then rest; Till then, rest never; The rest prepared tor thee by God Is rest forever. Finish thy work, then wipe thy brow; Ungird thee lrom thy toil; Take breath, and from each weary limb Shake ofi the soil. Finish thy work, then sit thee down On some celestial bill, And of its strength-reviving air Take tfcou thy fill. Finish thy work, then go in peace; Life’s battle fought and won, Hear from the throne the Master's voice, “Well done! well done!” Finish thy work, then take thy harp, Give praise to God above; 8ing a new song of mighty joy And endless love. Give thanks to him who held thee up In all thy path below, Who made thee faithful unto'deatb, And crowns thee now! 1TEXS OF INTEREST. The keeper of a lighthouse holds a high position in the world.— Marathon Independent. The man who picked up the hot penny originated the remark: “ All that glitters is not cold.” It is estimated that Oregon will fur¬ nish a surplus of 250,000 tons of wheat lor export the coming season. An experimental plantation of olive rees in G eorgia is said to have yielded n excellent quality of olive oil. The lower jaw of an antediluvial mammoth was recently fished out of the River Dnieper by Russian fishermen; it is as black as a coal, and weighs seventy five pounds. < It is said that during the next fifteen years almost all the Russian railroads now in operation will undergo the pro¬ cess of redemption and become govern¬ ment property. The Phrenological Journal gives this sage advice: “In choosing a wife be governed by her chin.” Lots of men keep right on being governed this way, after marriage.— Hartford Journal . The locomotives used on the railroads of the United States, it is said, are do¬ ing the work of over 29.00,001) horses, while the census of 1880 aggregates horses of all ages at less than 9,000,000. A man fell down a short time ago and was will pretty be all badly used up. He says he leave differ. right by We next fall. We beg to think he will be worse off the next fall.— Keokuk Con¬ stitution. An expert estimates that in a single decade 500.000 persons engaged in in¬ dustrial pursuits in Great Britain sus¬ tain personal injury or are killed; in mines, 300,000: in railways, 70,000, and in factories, 180,000. From carefully-studied records of the occurrence of certain diseases in the past, an English physician infers that epidemics sweep over the country in quite regular periods, the cycles be¬ ing of about the following length: Whooping four cough, four years ;* smallpox, to five years; measles, seven years; scarlet fever, fifteen to twenty years. A scientist says 50,500,000 stars glim¬ mer in the firmament. Will some one of our readers please count the stars and inform us how near the scientist is correct in his figures P If the count can’t be made in one evening, the enu¬ merator should make a chalk mark where he leaves off, in order to know where to commence the next night; otherwise he may count some stars twice. THE FARMER AND POLITIC8. The tanner in the paper Bead the editorial mentions That the iate ot nations rested On the R. and I). conventions. Bat the trees had leaved and blossomed, And the grass continued growing; All the sprouts ol com were starting, And the larmer went on hoeing. When the matter was decided, And they made the no mina tion, One declared it was a blessing, And another ruination. Still the fruit grew ripe and mellow, < And the wheat was nicely growing; While the larmer in his garden 'Boot his tami(>s went on hoei&a. — Oil CUy Derrick.
