THE PLEASURES OF THE PRESS.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 409, 21 November 1868, Page 6

THE PLEASURES OF THE PRESS.

Few people who enjoy the luxury of a daily or even a weekly paper have any idea of the cost of production. We do not meau merely the money expenditure, but the thought, the mental and mechanical worry inseparable even from the management of the smallest and least pretentious of all the petty papers of the provinces. Somehow or another, men who are exceedingly sensible in other things, have got the notion into their heads that they know far better about reporting and editing, and all the rest of it, than those who have spent their life-time in the service. Their kindness in the way of ' advice gratis' is sometimes ove7'whelming—why, if their gratuitous goodness was just to take the shape of cash for a season, the fortunes of editors would be speedily made. Sometimes the irritated 'we 'is tempted to think that there is nobody who thinks himself too stupid or too ignorant to conduct a paper. And as for the poor reporters —they dare not for the very sake of the people themselves, report people as they speak, if they alter the speech to suit good grammar, or maybe to make it something and get cantankerous at being kept from making -a fool of himself. Then, if reporters give a noisy meeting at full length, some great man who lost his temper will get offended immediately ; if the meeting is not fully reported, the reporter is charged with cooking; some speaker presses his manuscript on the reporter who doesn't want it; and some other speaker, whose MS. the reporter does want, professes not to have any. This is a very disagreeable type of the public orator —the man who wishes you to believe that he is so very clever he does not require to study any of his effort:, although all the time the reporter know r s perfectly well the MS. is in the large man's pocket, or may be lurking in his hat. This is the kind of man who runs some risk of being reported as he speaks—the bitterest revenge known in the press world.