THE EDITOR OF THE DAY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 124, 10 September 1875, Page 8

THE EDITOR OF THE DAY.

Tiim actual editor is a vastly inferior being to the marvellous one conjured up by the fine fancy of a sagacious public. One room contains him, and his lips fail to penetrate through the walls. During the day ho is a charitable public- institution. He is credited with being in respect of knowledge an incarnate encyclopedia, duly indexed for reference or an endowed dispensary whereat information and advice may be had by all comers gratis. His purse and his patience arc believed to be inexhaustible, and he ia resorbed to as if he were a pump, to which empty vessels may go da,y by day and come away replenished — the general notion being that there is a perennial supply of wealth deep down in him, and that it has be reached as well sinkers reach water, by ' boring.' . It is his misfortune, not his fault, that there exists an indestructiblo superstition by which- his broad-sheet is lookedcupon as an unenclosed common, upon which the villagers may .turn their geese and their grunters, or expatiate- in freedom unrestrained. No vigilance of his can disabuse some outsiders of the notion that the correspondence column is like one of those bits of .waste land which need ' filling tip,' and upon which there is a board thus lettered — ' Rubbish may be shot here.' He is called upon to decide bets. He receives every week as many applications for place or employment, or private favor, as if he had just been elected president of the American Republic. His special affliction consists of the people j fevered with ' a fad ' — inventors, incipient bards, hobbyists — writers. ' who cannot write, and amateurs who are surer of their genius than. ! their grammar. Persons come to him sleek, smiling, and smooth | of speech, and most suspiciously civil, to express their admiration ' of his journal, and to lay before him a happy thought of theirs — a thought inspired by their desire to serve him. Visitors of this complimentary kind generally want, tinder some pretext of public spirit, to air a private grudge, (o indulge an animus against a business rival, to secure a valuable advertisement without paying for it, or to ' improve,' or 'to add a new and attractive feature to ' your paper" for ' a consideration ; ' and when you so far fail to appreciate their courteous solicitude as to tell them that your waste-paper basket nightly receives its half -bushel or so of ' respectfully declineds/ they depart convinced that the freedom of the press is a figment, and that the great want of the age is an independent paper. ________«__«««_