In this educating, though not elevating, sphere, he may spend the
rest of his newspaper life. If he rises above it, he goes into gen
eral reporting. He serves his time at police headquarters, in the
trial courts, civil and criminal, dabbles in politics and finance,
learns to write columns about nothing and to tell something in
ten lines. He becomes a " star man," perhaps.
There may be more excitement in the life of an Arctic or an
African explorer than in that of a " star man," but there is cer
tainly less variety. One week this reportorial Bayard is hunting
a murderer through dingy tenements; the next he is reporting
some big trial; the next lie is off in a small tug boat searching the
Atlantic for a belated steamship or chasing a Presidential candi
date on a stumping tour of the country. The life is so fascinat
ing that many men prefer reportorial to editorial work. They
have the leisure to branch off into purely literary work, and have
before them as goals such desirable posts as those of the London
or Washington correspondents; or they may become special com
missioners and rescue fair women from Cuban prisons and inter
view the Pope regarding their paper's circulation.
Of the editorial places on a great paper to which a man may
fall heir there are a score, beginning at the actual ownership and
going down. Every morning paper has a managing editor, a city
editor and a night editor, each with an assistant attached. Then
there are the copy readers, the editorial writers, the sporting
editor, the telegraph editor, the racing editor, the dramatic editor,
society editor and the book reviewers.
The great disadvantage in newspaper life is the fact that there
is so much night work. On the afternoon papers the men begin
their labor at about half-past eight in the morning and quit at
half-past four o'clock. But as a penalty for keeping civilized
hours they must work with great rapidity, for from two to five
editions are turned on the street in a day. A chosen few on a
morning paper begin labor at ten o'clock and end it at six. The
majority are on duty from noon until one or two o'clock in the
morning, This owl-like life has its drawbacks, but it has also its
fascinations. One soon becomes accustomed to it, and many a
man having once acquired the habit of living at night and sleep
ing in the daytime finds it difficult to adjust himself to the hours
of the generality of mankind. I know of one old reporter who
gave up a place on an afternoon paper because he could not sleep.
The Free Lance
`JANUARY,