Journal, has adopted the expedient, profitable to himself, but annoying to the other fellows, of en closing a notice with his rejected manuscript, naming some particular publication by which he thinks the orphan might be adopted. His record of these wandering manuscripts for 1890 shows that he received 2,280 poems, 1,746 stories, and 11,179 miscellaneous articles. Of these, only one per cent was accepted. Nor has the position and pay of a reporter gone through a less evolution. In most newspapers and especially the country press, there are stereo typed forms for announcing the startling array of births, deaths, marriages, visits, receptions, trials and accidents which usually fill the columns, and it is an easy matter for one to adopt them and so graduate into a reporter via the roller washing course. In this way the "devil" often becomes the master. Here the collection of news is of vastly more importance than itsarrangement, and the salary diminishes in consequence. One hot July morning a young man, a college graduate of one brief summer's week, mounted the stairs of an editorial office to lay himself a sacrifice upon the altar of public curiosity. The editor viewed with contempt the samples of genius which the young man presented in the college paper and asked for the first question how much salary he wanted. The collegian remembered his four long years of plodding after the fleeing Minerva and estimated his trained (?) services at $2O per week. The reply impressed itself so firmly that it can be reproduced; "Well, young fellow, .you may have brains, but brains don't go in newspaper work; we want legs. If you can get up and hustle from 2 o'clock in the afternoon till 4 next morning and move so fast the flies wont light on you, I'll give you $2.50 a week." Ilium rut?. In England, so it is said, contrary to the American custom, one of the prime requisities of a reporter is that he shall have had a collegiate education, and secondry, that he shall be a good stenographer, both conditions implying , special training. The brains. are. not relegated.. to .the THE FREE LANCE: editor-in-chief and the ,legs.to the news-gatherer, , but each must possesses qualifications. which will roughly fit . hith for:any line from minor editorial: to common• criminal, and he is permitted to 'work' up any field for which he :displays an 'aptitude.' His bearing must fit him for entering a reception' in high life, and his:conversational abilities ade quate for turning an interview, either.around or• concealed, to the tOpici most 'pertinent. 'Then in' accord with his 'requirements, he is paid a ..salary sufficient to support him welt, with increased conic pensation and' Privileges:as he devel'op's.' ,• ; '; However there are signs that the demand for. intellectual work on a newspaper is increasing. Current Literature, through whose column one' can easily feel the pulse of the world's liter.try circulation, frequently contains notices of college bred men,. and those who have gained some liter ary repute being engaged upon newspapers. Speci.: alists are paid per article ; compensation for con-; stant work is in 'proportion, to ability, ..an,l hours assigned 'which yet permit of some en joyment in life. Every indication points to larged permission to specialists and a growing re gard for educated labor. It is true that the field of journalism needs lifting from its present level of scandals, murders, divorces and prize fights, but so long as the people demand these so long will they appear. The best chances for improve ment lie in the elevation of the popular taste, for which better writers, are needed and in the dis crimination of certain papers which shall cater to higher taste and satisfy it with higher writing. George W. Curtis, himself the ideal of an edu cated man, with ideal facilities in editing Harper's Weekly, is reported as having recently said that journalism, with its accompanying diplomacy, politics, lecturing and literary demands, offers one of the best openings to young men who have any tendency toward composition or speaking. One needs but to note the number of prominent men who were or are connected with the press, to verify this statement. In fact the press seems in dispensible to. political advancement. Every col-
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers