ON EDITORS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 899, 20 September 1879, Page 2

ON EDITORS.

(From " The Printer and Stationer.") Somb of our beat managing editors have started lifb at the "case," while others equally as good never held a " stick " m their hand. But, with few exceptions, whether the editor has dropped into his position from the "case" m the com-posing-room, or tumbled into the business, as it were, by accident or choice, he must be a man of quick perception, ready to lift the pen and grapple with his subject at a moment's notice. Nearly all the editors are first-class reporters ; that is they can give ihe substance of a "speaker m language terae arid brief, and give m a single paragraph what the speaker has failed to do m an hour's declamation. Thus it is that all editors are excellent correspondents. They study to be as concise as possible, write to be understood, and no more- wbrds are used m the sentence than is necessary. To be an editor now one must be as versatile as a dancing-master, and able to write not as conscience dictates, but as he is instructed. The life of an editor is, therefore, all things considered, one that is seldom taken up by choice ; the man drops into the editorial chair more by accident than design, and once m it he loses all moral courage to get out of it to engage m a mercantile pursuit m which there is not only a possibility but a probability of obtaining an independent competence before the setting m of old age. That is never obtained Bitting m the editorial chair, when employed to do the literary drudgery of a paper. The every-day editor makes a living and little more. He can often do much for his friends, but for himself he can do nothing.