An Editor cannot step without treading on somebody's toes. If he expresses his opinion fearlessly and frankly, he is arrogant and presumptuous. If he states facts without comments, he dares not avow his sentiments. If he conscientiously refuses to advocate the claim of an individual to office, he is accused of personal hostility. A contributor, who measures off words into verses as a shopman does tape, by the yard, hands him a parcel of stuff that jingles like a handful of rusty nails and a gimblet, and if the editor be not fool enough to print the nonsense—Stop my paper! I wont patronise a man that's no better judge of poetry. One murmurs because his paper is too literary, another grumbles because it is not so enough. One grumbles because the advertisements engross too much room, another complains that the paper is too large, he cannot lind time to read it all. One wants the type so small that a microscope would be indispensible in every family, another threatens to discontinue the paper unless the letters are half an inch long. One old lady actually offered to give an additional price for a paper that should be printed with such types as are used for hand-bills. In fact, every subscriber has a plan of his own for conducting a journal, and the labour of Sysiphus was recreation compared with that of an editor who undertakes to please all.—Chambers's Journal.
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Bibliographic details
Lyttelton Times, Volume I, Issue 43, 1 November 1851, Page 3
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239Untitled Lyttelton Times, Volume I, Issue 43, 1 November 1851, Page 3
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