An Editor's Wail

1895

If anybody thinks it is just fun and nothing else to run even so small a paper as this, let him come and buy us out. This paper began without assets and has nearly held her own. If the goodly number who promised to pay for their paper would only do so, we could pay what we owe and have enough left to go fishing. Alas, we believe that the fish are perfectly safe if we wait until that time! — Red Wing (Minn.) Methodist.


May Avoid It

"Whither, dear friend?"
"To Africa."
"Are you crazy? One hundred and thirty degrees in the shade!"
"But I need not go in the shade." — Fliegende Blatter.


Comforting

Mabel (looking in mirror) — My face is my fortune.
Ethel — Yes, dear. Well, the man who weds you will never be accused of marrying for riches. — Fashions.

An Experiment In Journalism

1901

Once there was a really radical paper, in London it was, but the man who made it now lives here and tells the tale. It was one of those papers which are a tragedy. They represent the wreck of the enthusiasm of strong men who must find the outlet for their apostolate. This paper began by being at odds with all that was established, and it had readers. But as time went on the man who made the paper drove off singly and in groups all those who had begun by being his supporters. It was found a little too radical for them, and they no longer kept step with its newest march.

"Of course I now can see that such a paper was foredoomed to failure," the editor said after he had recited the early history of his venture. "I confess it was pretty strong even for British radicals. After the circulation had dwindled down to the extremists I succeeded in alienating about half of them by denouncing social democracy as feudal oppression, and the other half left me when I attacked atheism on the score of its superstitious tendencies. After that I ran the paper as long as I could without any subscribers. But I had to give it up. Nobody would read it except myself, and toward the end I had to give up reading it myself. I found it too unsettling. So it stopped." — New York Commercial Advertiser.

A Foreign Tongue

1900

On the strength of a story printed in the Washington Star, it may be said that it is a wise person that knows his own vernacular after the dialect-writer is done with it.

"What on earth is de matter wid yoh talk?" asked Piccaninny Jim's mother.

"Dat talk what I was jes' now talkin'?"

"Yassir."

"Oh, dat aint sho-nuff talk! Ev'ybody's gotter speak in school, an' de teacher is learnin' me a negro dialeck piece."


Unsettled

"Can you tell me what sort of weather we may expect next month?" wrote a subscriber to an editor; and according to the Cumberland Presbyterian, the editor replied as follows:

"It is my belief that the weather next month will be very much like your subscription."

The inquirer wondered what the editor meant, till he happened to think of the word "unsettled." — Youth's Companion.

Budapest Has Telephone Journal, News and Music by Phone

1895

TELEPHONE JOURNAL

BY WIRE TO EVERY SUBSCRIBER'S BEDSIDE.

The Telephone Herald of Budapest — Has 6,000 Subscribers — In Operation Two Years — News Carefully Edited — Between Editions Concerts Are Given

The telephone newspaper organized at Budapest has now been working successfully for two years. It is the only newspaper of the kind in the world. It is called The Telephono Hirnondo, or Herald, costs 2 cents like a printed paper and is valuable to persons who are unable or too lazy to use their eyes or who cannot read. It has 6,000 subscribers, who receive the news as they would ordinary telephone messages. A special wire 168 miles long runs along the windows of the houses of subscribers, which are connected with the main line by separate wires and special apparatus which prevents the blocking of the system by an accident at any one of the stations.

Within the houses long, flexible wires make it possible to carry the receiver to the bed or elsewhere in the room. The news is not delivered as it happens to come in, but is carefully edited and arranged according to a printed schedule, so that a subscriber at any time knows what part of the paper he is going to hear. It begins with the night telegrams from all parts of Europe. Then comes the calendar of events for the day, with the city news and the lists of strangers at the hotels. After that follow articles on music, art and literature. The staff is organized like that of any other newspaper and is on duty from 7:30 in the morning till 9:30 at night.

After the copy has passed through the editor's hands, for the paper is subject to the same restrictions as ordinary newspapers and is liable for its communications, it is given to the "speakers." These are ten men with strong voices and clear enunciation, who work in shifts of two at a time and talk the news through the telephone. There are 23 editions uttered a day. Additions to the first edition are announced as news items. To fill up the time when no news is coming in the subscribers are entertained with vocal and instrumental concerts.

These were at first given for them especially in the office of The Hirnondo, but now the wire is in communication with the opera house and the music halls and on Sundays and saints' days with the churches. The music is transmitted at times to other places in Austria-Hungary, and recently The Hirnondo michrophone was connected with the circuit going from Triest, through Vienna, Bremen and Budapest, to Berlin, the music being heard in all these places with equal clearness and force. The happy Hungarian can lie abed all day and hear everything that is going on in his town.

Such a newspaper as the one described was foreshadowed by a writer in the British and Colonial Printer and Stationer in December, 1893. In the article, which was entitled "A Fairy Tale For Printers," an attempt was made to forecast the future of the daily newspaper, and The Telephono Hirnondo closely resembles the writer's ideal. — Newspaperdom.

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, IA, Oct. 5, 1895, p. 3.