A DAILY NEWSPAPER.

Marlborough Express, Volume XI, Issue 876, 16 December 1876, Page 7

A DAILY NEWSPAPER.

It maybe interesting to some readers to know how a large daily newspaper iB worked, and therefore /we reprint the followiag from the San Francisco Morning CaV. The article being rather lengthy we have divided it into two parts, the last of which will be published m our next issue. The writer says :— I find my paper waiting for me this, as every morning, along with my coffee. It ia rolled as neatly and as tightly as tha napkin which it flanks. lam told that the carrier gives it the peculiar shape m which it comes to me — that he has many hundreds of subscribers along his route, and that at the door of each subscriber he tosses the HALF-FOLDED, HALF-TWISTED PAPER. With. the accuracy and speed of a baae-balliafc player into the hands of his pitcher. I rather enjoy smoothing out the creases m the damp sheet. One opens out the paper on a morning of leisure with much the same dreary, complacent feeling a3 that with which he cuts the leaves of his new magazine ? Embraced m its long, closelypacked columns is erery-thing that has happened within the last twenty-four hours that is worth narrating. THE ADVERTISEMENTS. Are as varied as the nsws matter, and to many parsons are equally interesting and profitable; Every advertisement has its reader. A stranger forms his best opinion of a town from its business notices. The advertising columns of my newspaper tells me more about the city m half-an-hour's reading than I can learn m a day's outside experience. There are certain persons to whom advertisements are as pleasant as table-talk. The announcements made from time to time by the dry goods houses, are as attractive to the class for whose eyes they are specially intended as a fashionable novel, and are infinitely less hurtful. They affect the parse rather than the mind. A charitable appeal, however earnest, has not the tithe of the pooket emptying force that is conveyed m an announcement m elephantine letters of " Slaugh-

ter !" Slaughter of what?— of men or women, or of beeves? No. Of silks and satins, of empress cloth and moire antique. Or the eye and the purse are caught by the simple word " Inauguration," m equally bold typa, and the simple-minded have not far to read until they learn that the inauguration spoken of is- not that of the President or of our New City Hall, but of an important era m the dry goods trade. That these notices tempt thousands of readers, the advertisers well know. Notification of the opening day for seasonable stylos m any of our leading drapery houses is waited for by .the fashionable mindjwith au eagerness a banker does not exhibit as he waits for changes m the London money market or m the Parisian Bourse. Such advertisements help the circulation of money ; and principles m political economy need hardly be cited to prove that if money were spent less freely m San Francisco, the city would come short of the prosperity it enjoys to-day. Notices of entertainments and picnics are more generally read than any other class of advertisements. One reads them whether he expects to be beuefitted thereby or not. He may not. be able to see Barry Sullivan's Richard, Mrs ScottSiddon's Rosalind, or Mr Sothern's Dundreary. Mount Tamalpais may be as distant as Mout Blanc to him, such is bis inability to participate m. the excursion there to-morrow. But he is pleased to know what a good actor is about to essay m the city, and ho imagines he can suiff the fragrance of wild flowers m the very announcement of the first picnic of the season. He is like a moneyless urchin m front of a London cook shop— he can dilate his nostrils over the appetising viands, but he [.may riot 'sit down to the feast.Buthere is another description of advertisoments altogether — perhaps the most useful of all. Some" of them are a line m length — a few of them are over six. These are the advertisements that bring master and man, mistress and maid.Tjuyer aud seller, and landlord and tenant together. . I want a clerk, and two lines m my newspaper bring 3 me more applications than I have patience to go through. I desire a situation, and I find my newspaper a valuable channel through which to obtain one. I have a house to rent, aud my newspaper places my notice before a multitude of readers. I have goods to dispose of, and my newspaper lays my wares before innumerable purchasers. I have lost something, and if I cannot recover it by means of the publicity my newspaper is willing to give me I inny as well submit with resignation to my misfortuue. My nowspaper tells me of the marriage of my old sweetheart to a rich and hated rival m the next street; — two clergymen officiating, and "no cards" added as a fashionable "Amen." I mutter '.'Amen" myself .is I re.td the dainty notice ; and my eye forthwith rests on another kind of notification altogether, . and grows dim as I read it —my friend is lost- to me, and the invitation to assist m the .la<t rite we owe to one another is as sad as it is formal. HOW I GET MY NEWSPAPER. . It will surely not be unprofitable to ascertain how the sheet is produced that serves so useful a purpose m our every-day life, and supplies us the news of remote countries as accurately and freshly a3 it does the events of our own city. I find the publication office m a business centre. It is Hb up by two plate-glass windows, as are the stores which flank it. The windows have nothing m them to attract nofcico, but I observe that the visitoi'3 to the office greatly outnumber those who frequeut the most gaily decorated of the stores on the same line of travel. Clerks are busy receiving and classifying advertisements. One geutleaian is making out accounts of advertisements that have run their course ; another is checking off the advertisements m today's paper that have now to bo withdrawn ; while yet another is as constantly employed iv answering questions, a3 the agent of an inquiry office. The man working silently iv the Bo!) Cratchit tank at the end of the room is the mailing clerk. He has charge of the list of outside subscribers, aud, as it is a list subject to continual change, and as the alteration is as likely to have reference to the Cape of Good Hope as to a village m the next County, he is required to.be active and careful. One feels m the way while making these observations. This is* evidently a placa for business, and not for id'iug. Something like a hundred men and women have passed m and out during the few minutes I have been here. The clerks eeem prepared for a rush of work. Their labor is systematised, ?nd practice has made them experts. A visitjr demauds to see the manager.. He says his nama is John Jones, but that he is not the John Jones who was fined yesterday by Judge Louderback and it is his desire that the public should be apprised of the fact. He is referred to the editorial rooms. Let us follow him there. They are 50 yards or so from the business office. They are unpretentious, and a stranger would have difficulty m finding them without a guide. The building does not call for description. It is the work thatis done m it with which we have to do. John Jones is inclined to be timid as he approaches, the door of the sanctum. The inscrip-. tion on the portal need not startle him. It is the antithesis of that which Dante describes m the Infernum. "Don't knock — walk m." Air Jones raads the notice over twice, gathers courage, lowers his hand to the door knob and obeys the injunction. He is m A CHAMBER OF SCRIBES. Seated at desks on which ample light is reflected from shaded lamps are a full corps of newspaper writers. Their countenances bespeak their occupation ; the readiness with which they dash off sheet after sheet of manuscript shows that they are equal to their work. Prom the local oditor, John Jones, gets the solatium- he wants and departs contented. Let us Btay behind, and see for once how this newspaper is .preparad. This is no secret chamber. A few hours more, aud thirty or forty thousand duplicates will have been made and circulated of every line that is now being scratched with such rapidr.ty by so many hands. This is the room of the local editor. He is the captain of the host around him. The scribblers I see are the reporters of the paper. The work they do is submitted to the local editor for revision, . for head-lines, for head-lines, for condensation, if needs be ; and thus the reporter shifts the responsibility from his own shoulders to that of his chief. The work of the local editor requires

skill and judgement, and is as laborious as it is responsible, He estimate?, say, that he has four column 3 of news on hand. Word comes to him that he can get room only for two. Further condensation is required, ai| d submitted- to. •> Each day must carry it 3 own burlhen of u'ews