Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 105.djvu/161

150 of everything else; or a long communication is received, the insertion of which, for special reasons, cannot be refused—and thus his labour is rendered vain. As fast as he builds, the pressure from without overthrows; the flood of matter constantly pouring in overflows the space. Reports, which have cost both labour and money, are gutted; leading articles are emasculated or withdrawn altogether; some things are mutilated, that they may be squeezed in amongst others that cannot be omitted or touched; and, in a word, the day's work consists in lightening and restowing the ship again and again. On this day of all others, too, people will keep calling to see the editor: one to detail a cock-and-a-bull story, which he considers news; another to entice him, in his hurry, to shoot the "light, swift arrows of a calumniating tongue," to pledge his veracity for this statement, and to avouch for the propriety of that act, although he has no personal knowledge of the matter, and as if he can overstep reason with impunity because he is an editor. Then does he remember the words which he has read in one of his Sunday books: "There are some people so full of nothings, that, like the straight sea of Pontus, they perpetually empty themselves by the month, making every person they meet their Prepontis;" and verily may it be added, "no trace of what they say, or mean, or intend, remains in the mind, except that there has been an outpour." The day is slipping away, the space of the newspaper is fast filling up, and the effluxion of time threatens to settle the question of what shall appear. The art of newspaper management is shown best in limiting the materials to the amount of space, taking care that the best news, which is that which comes latest, is not excluded. But generally there is more than enough. People make a sad mistake in offering their effusions as "something to fill up with," and in compassionating an editor, as they sometimes do, on having nothing to put in his paper. The fact is, there is generally too much, but rarely too little. I believe myself, that if a newspaper were as large as the side of a house, it would not even then be large enough. Take an example: no sooner did the Times double its size, than it was forced to add a supplement, and now it is often forced to double that.

The day before publishing is, in short, a regular scramble. The editor is in a continual worry, having to do two men's work with one pair of hands. He is continually writing and re-writing, arranging and re-arranging, curtailing and re-curtailing. The overseer is vexed and irritated by the work, and growls at the compositors; while they become ill-tempered through fatigue and harsh language, and all the less inclined, by driving, to "pull up." Lights are flaring, doors are banging, the "devil" rushes up and down stairs perpetually; and at stated hours of the evening arrive processions of cups and cans, and saucer-covered basins (borne by boys, and girls, and women, but never by men), hugely to the annoyance of the overseer, who thinks that to eat and drink whilst he is in the throes, is downright skulking. The limbs and contents of the newspaper are strewed about the printing-office—here a column of advts, there a galley of local pars; one man is in the midst of a parliamentary debate ; another has "the cholera;" another has taken part of "a dreadful murder;" another is finishing "a railway accident;" and others have shared "the Bank of England" amongst them;—there is a