IMPARTIAL

New Zealand Graphic, Volume V, Issue 40, 4 October 1890, Page 18

IMPARTIAL

It is a common experience for editors to reject their own manuscripts, but they do not often go about it in so methodical a fashion as did a man of whom a paper tells a story. He was a newspaper editor, and one day wrote an article of a light and enterprising character, suitable, as he thought, for some magazine. He kept it by him for a while, occasionally reading it over and retouching it, all the time uncertain whether it really had any particular value. Finally he hit upon a plan for getting his own impartial judgment. He would mail it to his own address, receive it and read it in the regular course of his business, and see how it would stand the test. He addressed a note to himself as editor, enclosed stamps for a reply, and sent off the manuscript, just as if he had been sending it to the Atlantic or the Century. The envelope reached him early in the afternoon, but, as usual, he allowed it to lie for some time upon his desk mi opened. Toward night, when weariness had brought him into a declining mood, he took up the parcel, and read the proffered contribution. Apparently he succeeded in judging it without personal bias. At all events, he picked up one of the official letterheads, wrote a brief note to the would-be contributor, enclosed it with the manuscript in a big envelope, and dropped this into the mail-box. Next morning he received this envelope, with the list of his letters, and on opening it, read with great interest this note : ‘Unavailable. To > discursive and trivial in its tone. Should have been elaborated with more care. Still, there are some good points in it. The author might give himself another trial, and perhaps succeed better.’