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THE CHIVALRY OF THE PRESS.

BY JULIUS CHAMBERS.

IN the splendid days of Rome, the editor was he who introduced the gladiators as they entered the arena to fight the tigers.

To-day, the editor directs the newspaper and he often affects to believe that his mission on earth is to fight the tiger himself.

The editor of this class is a barbarian who forgets that Rome is only a memory.

The successful editor of to-day recognizes the fact that the newspaper exists to amuse and instruct, to uphold public honor and private virtue quite as much as to denounce fraud or expose official corruption. The newspaper is powerful exactly in proportion as it is successful in representing the people who read it; in following, rather than dictating, their line of policy; and, whether it exists for the people or not, it certainly endures only by their sufferance and good-will. Therefore, it is well that we consider the relations of the people at large to the newspaper; then, the editor's relation to his neighbors, the public; and, finally, the chivalry of editors toward each other.

The newspaper is so large a part of our modern life that it would be trivial to argue the question whether it can be dispensed with. Men who live abreast of the age cannot consent to miss a single day's communion with the news of the world. The non-arrival of the mail will render an active. man absent from town utterly miserable. The purchaser of the daily newspaper of to-day receives for the price of a half yard of calico a manufactured article that has required the employment of millions of capital to produce,―to say nothing of genius to sustain.

And he is often somewhat grateful.

But the chivalry of the public toward the newspaper is peculiar. The public would appear to believe that anything

it can coax, wheedle, or extort from the newspaper is fair salvage from the necessary expenditures of life.

Recently I listened in amazement to the Rev. Robert Collyer boast at a Cornell University dinner of having beguiled the newspapers of the country. He told how he had schemed and got money to build a new church after the Chicago fire. He did not make it very clear that the civilized members of his race clamored for the new edifice, but he made painfully apparent his ideas of chivalry to the press. "In this matter," he began, "I have always been proud of the way in which I worked the newspapers.' I succeeded in raising the money, because I coaxed the editors into coöperating with me. I wrote long puffs about the congregation and its pastor, and got them printed. Then I hurried 'round with the subscription list and a copy of the paper."

Of course, this was all said good-naturedly, was meant to be funny, and was uttered from a public rostrum with an utter obliviousness to the mental obliquity that a moment's thought will disclose. It left upon my mind much the same impression as that once made by hearing an apparently respectable man boast of having stolen an umbrella out of a hotel rack.

Later in the evening, when the reverend gentleman occupied a seat near mine, I asked, with as much naiveté as I could command, if he had "worked" the plumbers, the architects, the masons, the carpenters, and the bell-founders? To each of these questions he returned a regretful, “No.”

Despite his apparent innocence regarding the purport of my inquiry, I doubt if this gentleman would have boasted that he secured his clothes for nothing, that he wheedled his chops from his butcher, or coaxed his groceries from the shopkeeper at the corner of his street.

And yet, he spoke with condescension of the editor and his means of livelihood!

Men who over him.

Theoretically, the editor is the public's mutton. know him boast of their influence with him, and They dictate his policy for him—or say they do, which, of course, is the same thing. Men who never saw him claim to own him. Strangers, casually introduced, ask him questions about his personal affairs that would be instantly resented in any other walk of life.

An experience of my own will illustrate what I mean.

At a country house, near Philadelphia, I was introduced to a respectable-looking old mån. In the period following dinner, as we sat on the porch to enjoy a smoke, this stranger interrogated me in the most offensive way. When he had paused for breath I gave him a dose of his own medicine. The deadly parallel" column will tell the story.

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WHAT HE ASKED.

I hear you are an editor?
Do most newspapers pay?
How much do editors earn?

You began as a reporter? Does it require any education to be a reporter?

Do you write shorthand?
Eh? used to?

Please write some: let's see how it looks?

Curious-looking characters, aren't they?

How many columns can you write a day?

Do you write by the column?

What? Don't write at all? How strange!—and so on.

WHAT I ASKED.

I am told you are a hatter?
Is hat-making profitable?
How much does your busi-
ness net you yearly?

Grew up in the trade?
You can " block a hat while
I wait"?

You can handle a hot goose?
Could once?

Please take this hat and show me how it is put together.

Have seen a great many queerly shaped hats in your time, no doubt?

How many hats can you make in a day?

Do you work by the piece?

Ah? Don't work any longer? Supposed every hatter made his own hats!-- and so on.

The editor may be to blame for this state of things; but if so, his good-nature is responsible. He endures more than other men. He is often worried by the troubles of other people; but he never has been weaned from the milk of human kindness. He may be over-persuaded, he may be deceived, and editors have been fooled, like judge and jurors, by the perjured affidavit of apparently honorable men -but he still continues to believe in mankind.

The chivalry of the politician toward the press is comprehended to a nicety by every man who has served as a newspaper correspondent at Washington.

The average congressman thinks it clever to deceive a newspaper editor or correspondent. He believes they are to be used," whenever possible, for the congressman's advantage. A correspondent is to be tricked or cajoled into

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praising the statesman, revising the bad English in his speeches, "saving the country and the appropriations." All the charities require and demand his aid, and, I am ashamed to say (knowing as I do what a hollow mockery some of the alleged charities really are), generally get the assistance they ask.

The chivalry of the press toward the public is unquestionable. The editor keeps awake nearly all night to serve it, and the facts are not altered because in best serving the public he serves himself.

Journalism, I regret to say, is often spoken of as a "profession," and while we may accept the plebeian word "journalism,' as describing a daily labor, I sincerely desire to enter a protest against its designation as a profession. It seems entirely proper to me that this word be relegated to the pedagogue, the chiropodist, and the barn-storming actor who so boldly assert a right to its use.

The making of the newspaper is a mechanical art. It matters very little how much intelligence or genius, if you prefer the word-enters into its production, the inter-dependence of the so-called "intellectual" branch of the paper upon its mechanical adjuncts is so great that it cannot be maintained that the manufactured article offered to purchasers in the shape of a newspaper is the product of any one lobe of brain tissue. Of what value are a hundred thousand copies of the best newspaper in this land, edited, revised and printed, if its circulation department break down at the critical moment? And what about the newsman? Who shall say that he does not belong to journalism? He's to the service what the Don Cossack is to the Russian hosts. He's the Cossack of journalism-our Cossack of the dawn!

While it is easy to determine the point at which the newspaper begins its existence, it would be very difficult indeed to decide exactly where it receives its finishing touches. For years, geographers wrangled regarding the point at which the day began. In other words, this being Monday, they quarrelled regarding the point at which the sun ceased to shine on Monday, and began to shine on Tuesday.

Philosophers who have discussed the nice points of the daily newspapers have claimed that it dates its origin from the paper mill; but I fail to see why, if we are to go back to the paper mill, we shall not go much further and seek the com

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