A TALL REPORTER.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1877, 8 January 1875, Page 3

A TALL REPORTER.

A strange individual came up the four pair of stairs on Saturday morning, and as sooa as he recovered his breath lie wanted to know if the "Free Press" would like to engage anotuer reporter. He didn't want much pay, he said, his object being to identify himself with some growing journal, and let the fleeting years bring him, wealth and laurels. He was but 19 years old, and he hacl plenty of time. He said he could sit up three nights running, ingratiate himself into the affections of the police in one brief hour, and he knew the firemen and the captains of the ferry-boats would love 'him on sight. He eauld report anything, he said, from a deg fight to a regatta, and he wrote a lightning hand. He was used to religious meetings, and knew all about medical conventions, and would go for woman suffrage, or become a granger, iusfc as the paper desired. He preferred, he said, to work all day and night; but if the office had a rule requiring a man to sleep three or four hours out of the 24 he would obey. He promised much more, and his tones grew more serious as he talked. He was being consumed by a burning ambition to wield lead pencil, and icewater had no effect on him. He was "up" in grammar, posted in the poets, and as for history he could repeat every important event from the hour the boy stood on the burning fleck to Eli Perkins's fight with the Fat Contributor. He had brought along a few specimens of what he could 1 do—faint ef- ) forts scratched off with cjtjain-lightning velocity. He handed oiii? over;;.-• Hi read:—■ "Murder lV !—About 10 o'clock last nite the cry "of murder^ was herd on one of our main streets, and as ii&ual the police was not in site. The cries was repeeted sevral times, being ehuffto curdle the blood of the bravest man that ever lived. Our new reporter at once—" The item was quickly handed back to him, and he was informed that Detroit was not his home. His talents were .too much for the town—-too many years in advance of it. They couldn't appreciate him here, but in Chicago— nearer the,setting sun—they were stand-, ing around on the corner looking' for such men. "You hain't a foolin' stranger?" he asked, his faco expressing the grayest anxiety. No —he could depend on it. It was a solemn thing to fool with a young man just starting out in life, and it was against office rules. "And Chicago is—is—r— ? ■'; "Just 284 miles west.;of Detroit." " Gpod-bye, stranger/- he continued, atodhe rose and picked up his bundle and put the end of hi 3 big cane under the stray. "I'm" very much obleeged to you, and if I, don't walk it "in four days, it's because the railroad bed gives out."—Detroit Free Press.