Journalistic Solecisms.

Otago Witness, Issue 2389, 14 December 1899, Page 62

Journalistic Solecisms.

Many are the humorous errors and quaint exprewion* .for which the young and jnexpeiienoed reporter is responsible. , The account of "The funeral of the remains of a late deceased military officer" thus concluded: "The body of the deceased gentleman was followed to the grave by a silent and deeply sympathising audience." I have read .in a description of a shower of rain in an Irish newspaper the following delicious sentence,; "The heavy raindrops varied in size from, a FhiJHng to eighteenpenco." A boy was found dead, hanging from a rope in a.room.of the house in which he lived in a provincial town.:. _ The reporter thus finished up his account of "the affair: "It is believed that the deceased put the rope round *his neok.-'as- a joke, and found when too late that he had made a fatal, mistake." A young reporter was^sftrifr to tie- ' scribe "a penny reading" in Dublin. "On, the whole," he wrote, "the entertainment was Ihe most mirtlvprovokang and 'soul-stirring that could be had for the money." A poor old-reporter in the same city, who had been reduced by drink to very wretched circumstances, cant to the Freeman's Journal an account of a suicide, which thus concluded: "No motive can be assigned for the rash act, as, when the man was picked up. the sum of 7Jkl was found in his pocket." The old journalist could not understand a man committing suicide with the price of three' whiskies in his possession.—Cornhill Magazine.