IN THE EDITORIAL CHAIR.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 4740, 23 August 1902, Page 3 (Supplement)

IN THE EDITORIAL CHAIR.

("Corn hill Magazine.**) "The editor is one of the happiest beggars in the world/’ wrote the American schoolboy in his es*ay on newspapers. “He can. go to the circus in the afternoon and evening without paying a cent, also to inquests ami hangings. He has free tickets to the theatre, and gets weddingcake «;cnt to him. and sometimes gets lickc-d. but not often. While other folks have got to go to bed early, the editor can sit up every night and see all that is going on.”

In this country not even the schoolboy —to whom, as a rule, no Institution is sacred—has yet reached the stage of writing or speaking of the conductors of the great morning newspapers in terms of such freedom and familiarity.. The newspaper editor is still to a great extent a man of mystery to the general public: and with regard to the editorial room, known in common talk as "the sanctum/’ it is rarely that the curtain which veils its secrets to the vulgar gaze ; is lifted. Charles Lamb, in his essav "Newspapers Thirty-five Years ago/’ gives us n passing glimpse of the editorial room of the "Morning Post" at the opening of the nineteenth century—that paper to which ho used to contribute daily a number of witty paragraphs, not to exceed seven lines each, at sixpence a joke. It was a handsome apartment, we are told, with rosewood desks and inkstands of silver. Close on half a century later, in January, 1546. the "Da.M.v News," with Charles Dickens as editor, made its appearance on an unprecedented scale of magnificence, The editorial room was luxuriously furnished. The desks were of rosewood and the inkstands of silver. The books of reference were bound in "Russia leather, with gill edges. Letters addressed to the editor wore presented to iho great man upon silver solvers by attendants in gorgeous liveries.

A toally differeu spectacle was exhibited in the editorial room of the “Morning Chronicle” at the time it was edited by John Black and Dickens was a member of its reporting staff. Black, blunt and bluff and thick-sot, more like a farmer than a journalist, had an insuperable objection to his room in the "Morning Chronicle” office being kept tidy. The place was always in supreme confusion. . Books upon books and papers upon pajiers were strewn, dust-laden, about the floor. Harry Hunt was once asked, in cross-examination in a libel case against the “Morning Chronicle,” whether he had ever bean in Mr Black’s room. "Yes,” said Hunt. "And how was the editorial sanctum furnished? Splendidly?" asked the counsel. "I can hardly say that it was,” replied Hunt. "Can you give the jury some idea of the interior ? What do you suppose would have been the value of the furniture?” said the counsel. "I should not think that the whole of the furniture, if sold at any auction, would have fetched more than sevcnponce-halfpenny.” was the answer. "Are you serious, sir?” asked the counsel. I "Remember you are on your oath, sir.” "1 do remember that.” replied Hunt: i "and, remembering it, I hope I have not \ put too extravagant a price upon the furniture.” "Then please to explain, sir.” | said the counsel, "how you arrive at the conclusion that the whole of the furniture in the editorial sanctum of the "Morning Chronicle” is not worth more than sevenpencohalfpeuny.” "Why,” said Hunt, amid the laughter of the Court, "there was no furniture at all in the room,’except a table and two chair?: and while the table would not have fetched sixpence. no one would have given more than three-halfpence at the utmost for the two chairs together.”