CHAPTER X.
"A penny for your thoughts, uncle," said Miss Drewitt, as they sat at dinner an hour or two after the departure of Mr. Vickers.
"H'm?" said the captain, with a guilty start.
"You've been scowling and smiling by turns for the last five minutes," said his niece.
"I was thinking about that man that was here this morning," said the captain, slowly; "trying to figure it out. If I thought that that girl Selina——"
He took a draught of ale and shook his head solemnly.
"You know my ideas about that," said Prudence.
"Your poor mother was obstinate," commented the captain, regarding her tolerantly. "Once she got an idea into her head it stuck there, and nothing made her more angry than proving to her that she was wrong. Trying to prove to her, I should have said."
Miss Drewitt smiled amiably. "Well, you've earned half the sum," she said. "Now, what were you smiling about?"
"Didn't know I was smiling," declared the captain.
With marvellous tact he turned the conversation to lighthouses, a subject upon which he discoursed with considerable fluency until the meal was finished. Miss Drewitt, who had a long memory and at least her fair share of curiosity, returned to the charge as he smoked half a pipe preparatory to accompanying her for a walk.
"You're looking very cheerful," she remarked.
The captain's face fell several points. "Am I?" he said, ruefully. "I didn't mean to."
"Why not?" inquired his niece.
"I mean I didn't know I was," he replied, "more than usual, I mean. I always do look fairly cheerful—at least, I hope I do. There's nothing to make me look the opposite."
Miss Drewitt eyed him carefully and then passed upstairs to put on her hat. Relieved of her presence the captain walked to the small glass over the mantelpiece and, regarding his tell-tale features with gloomy dissatisfaction, acquired, after one or two attempts, an expression which he flattered himself defied analysis.
He tapped the barometer which hung by the door as they went out, and, checking a remark which rose to his lips, stole a satisfied glance at the face by his side.
"Clark's farm by the footpaths would be a nice walk," said Miss Drewitt, as they reached the end of the lane.
The captain started. "I was thinking of Dutton Priors," he said, slowly. "We could go there by Hanger's Lane and home by the road."
"The footpaths would be nice to-day," urged his niece.
"You try my way," said the captain, jovially.
"Have you got any particular reason for wanting to go to Dutton Priors this afternoon?" inquired the girl.
"Reason?" said the captain. "Good gracious, no. What reason should I have? My leg is a trifle stiff to-day for stiles, but still——"
Miss Drewitt gave way at once, and, taking his arm, begged him to lean on her, questioning him anxiously as to his fitness for a walk in any direction.
"Walking 'll do it good," was the reply, as they proceeded slowly down the High Street.
"HE BECAME INTENT ON A DERELICT PUNT."
He took his watch from his pocket, and, after comparing it with the town clock, peered furtively right and left, gradually slackening his pace until Miss Drewitt's fears for his leg became almost contagious. At the old stone bridge, spanning the river at the bottom of the High Street, he paused, and, resting his arms on the parapet, became intent on a derelict punt. On the subject of sitting in a craft of that description in mid-stream catching fish he discoursed at such length that the girl eyed him in amazement.
"Shall we go on?" she said, at length.
The captain turned and, merely pausing to point out the difference between the lines of a punt and a dinghy, with a digression to sampans which included a criticism of the Chinese as boat-builders, prepared to depart. He cast a swift glance up the road as he did so, and Miss Drewitt's cheek flamed with sudden wrath as she saw Mr. Edward Tredgold hastening towards them. In a somewhat pointed manner she called her uncle's attention to the fact.
"Lor' bless my soul," said that startled mariner, "so it is. Well! well!"
If Mr. Tredgold had been advancing on his head he could not have exhibited more surprise.
"I'm afraid I'm late," said Tredgold, as he came up and shook hands. "I hope you haven't been waiting long."
The hapless captain coughed loud and long. He emerged from a large red pocket-handkerchief to find the eye of Miss Drewitt seeking his.
"That's all right, my lad," he said, huskily. "I'd forgotten about our arrangement. Did I say this Sunday or next?"
"This," said Mr. Tredgold, bluntly.
The captain coughed again, and with some pathos referred to the tricks which old age plays with memory. As they walked on he regaled them with selected instances.
"Don't forget your leg, uncle," said Miss Drewitt, softly.
Captain Bowers gazed at her suspiciously.
"Don't forget that it's stiff and put too much strain on it," explained his niece.
The captain eyed her uneasily, but she was talking and laughing with Edward Tredgold in a most reassuring fashion. A choice portion of his programme, which, owing to the events of the afternoon, he had almost resolved to omit, clamoured for production. He stole another glance at his niece and resolved to risk it.
"Hah!" he said, suddenly, stopping short and feeling in his pockets. "There's my memory again. Well, of all the——"
"What's the matter, uncle?" inquired Miss Drewitt.
"I've left my pipe at home," said the captain, in a desperate voice.
"I've got some cigars," suggested Tredgold.
The captain shook his head. "No, I must have my pipe," he said, decidedly. "If you two will walk on slowly, I'll soon catch you up."
"You're not going all the way back for it?" exclaimed Miss Drewitt.
"Let me go," said Tredgold.
The captain favoured him with an inscrutable glance. "I'll go," he said, firmly. "I'm not quite sure where I left it. You go by Hanger's Lane; I'll soon catch you up."
He set off at a pace which rendered protest unavailing. Mr. Tredgold turned, and, making a mental note of the fact that Miss Drewitt had suddenly added inches to her stature, walked on by her side.
"Captain Bowers is very fond of his pipe," he said, after they had walked a little way in silence.
Miss Drewitt assented. "Nasty things," she said, calmly.
"So they are," said Mr. Tredgold.
"But you smoke," said the girl.
Mr. Tredgold sighed. "I have often thought of giving it up," he said, softly, "and then I was afraid that it would look rather presumptuous."
"Presumptuous?" repeated Miss Drewitt.
"So many better and wiser men than myself smoke," explained Mr. Tredgold, "including even bishops. If it is good enough for them, it ought to be good enough for me; that's the way I look at it. Who am I that I should be too proud to smoke? Who am I that I should try and set my poor ideas above those of my superiors? Do you see my point of view?"
Miss Drewitt made no reply.
"Of course, it is a thing that grows on one," continued Mr. Tredgold, with the air of making a concession. "It is the first smoke that does the mischief; it is a fatal precedent. Unless, perhaps——How pretty that field is over there."
Miss Drewitt looked in the direction indicated. "Very nice," she said, briefly. "But what were you going to say?"
Mr. Tredgold made an elaborate attempt to appear confused. "I was going to say," he murmured, gently, "unless, perhaps, one begins on coarse-cut Cavendish rolled in a piece of the margin of the Sunday newspaper."
Miss Drewitt suppressed an exclamation. "I wanted to see where the fascination was," she said, indignantly.
"And did you?" inquired Mr. Tredgold, smoothly.
The girl turned her head and looked at him. "I have no doubt my uncle gave you full particulars," she said, bitterly. "It seems to me that men can gossip as much as women."
"I tried to stop him," said the virtuous Mr. Tredgold.
"You need not have troubled," said Miss Drewitt, loftily. "It is not a matter of any consequence. I am surprised that my uncle should have thought it worth mentioning."
She walked on slowly with head erect, pausing occasionally to look round for the captain. Edward Tredgold looked too, and a feeling of annoyance at the childish stratagems of his well-meaning friend began to possess him.
"We had better hurry a little, I think," he said, glancing at the sky. "The sooner we get to Dutton Priors the better."
"Why?" inquired his companion.
"Rain," said the other, briefly.
"It won't rain before evening," said Miss Drewitt, confidently; "uncle said so."
"Perhaps we had better walk faster, though," urged Mr. Tredgold.
Miss Drewitt slackened her pace deliberately. "There is no fear of its raining," she declared. "And uncle will not catch us up if we walk fast."
A sudden glimpse into the immediate future was vouchsafed to Mr. Tredgold; for a fraction of a second the veil was lifted. "Don't blame me if you get wet, though," he said, with some anxiety.
They walked on at a pace which gave the captain every opportunity of overtaking them. The feat would not have been beyond the powers of an athletic tortoise, but the most careful scrutiny failed to reveal any signs of him.
"I'm afraid that he is not well," said Miss Drewitt, after a long, searching glance along the way they had come. "Perhaps we had better go back. It does begin to look rather dark."
"Just as you please," said Edward Tredgold, with unwonted caution; "but the nearest shelter is Dutton Priors."
He pointed to a lurid, ragged cloud right ahead of them. As if in response, a low, growling rumble sounded overhead.
"Was—was that thunder?" said Miss Drewitt, drawing a little nearer to him.
"Sounded something like it," was the reply.
A flash of lightning and a crashing peal that rent the skies put the matter beyond a doubt. Miss Drewitt, turning very pale, began to walk at a rapid pace in the direction of the village.
The other looked round in search of some nearer shelter. Already the pattering of heavy drops sounded in the lane, and before they had gone a dozen paces the rain came down in torrents. Two or three fields away a small shed offered the only shelter. Mr. Tredgold, taking his companion by the arm, started to run towards it.
Before they had gone a hundred yards they were wet through, but Miss Drewitt, holding her skirts in one hand and shivering at every flash, ran until they brought up at a tall gate, ornamented with barbed wire, behind which stood the shed.
The gate was locked, and the wire had been put on by a farmer who combined with great ingenuity a fervent hatred of his fellowmen. To Miss Drewitt it seemed insurmountable, but, aided by Mr. Tredgold and a peal of thunder which came to his assistance at a critical moment, she managed to clamber over and reach the shed. Mr. Tredgold followed at his leisure with a strip of braid torn from the bottom of her dress.
"AIDED BY MR. TREDGOLD AND A PEAL OF THUNDER, SHE MANAGED TO CLAMBER OVER."
The roof leaked in twenty places and the floor was a puddle, but it had certain redeeming features in Mr. Tredgold's eyes of which the girl knew nothing. He stood at the doorway watching the rain.
"Come inside," said Miss Drewitt, in a trembling voice. "You might be struck."
Mr. Tredgold experienced a sudden sense of solemn pleasure in this unexpected concern for his safety. He turned and eyed her.
"I'm not afraid," he said, with great gentleness.
"No, but I am," said Miss Drewitt, petulantly, "and I can never get over that gate alone."
Mr. Tredgold came inside, and for some time neither of them spoke. The rattle of rain on the roof became less deafening and began to drip through instead of forming little jets. A patch of blue sky showed.
"It isn't much," said Tredgold, going to the door again.
Miss Drewitt, checking a sharp retort, returned to the door and looked out. The patch of blue increased in size; the rain ceased and the sun came out; birds exchanged congratulations from every tree. The girl, gathering up her wet skirts, walked to the gate, leaving her companion to follow.
Approached calmly and under a fair sky the climb was much easier.
"I believe that I could have got over by myself after all," said Miss Drewitt, as she stood on the other side. "I suppose that you were in too much of a hurry the last time. My dress is ruined."
She spoke calmly, but her face was clouded. From her manner during the rapid walk home Mr. Tredgold was enabled to see clearly that she was holding him responsible for the captain's awkward behaviour; the rain; her spoiled clothes; and a severe cold in the immediate future. He glanced at her ruined hat and the wet, straight locks of hair hanging about her face, and held his peace.
Never before on a Sunday afternoon had Miss Drewitt known the streets of Binchester to be so full of people. She hurried on with bent head, looking straight before her, trying to imagine what she looked like. There was no sign of the captain, but as they turned into Dialstone Lane they both saw a huge, shaggy, grey head protruding from the small window of his bedroom. It disappeared with a suddenness almost startling.
"Thank you," said Miss Drewitt, holding out her hand as she reached the door. "Good-bye."
Mr. Tredgold said "Good-bye," and with a furtive glance at the window above departed. Miss Drewitt, opening the door, looked round an empty room. Then the kitchen door opened and the face of Mr. Tasker, full of concern, appeared.
"Did you get wet, miss?" he inquired.
Miss Drewitt ignored the question. "Where is Captain Bowers?" she asked, in a clear, penetrating voice.
The face of Mr. Tasker fell. "He's gone to bed with a headache, miss," he replied.
"Headache?" repeated the astonished Miss Drewitt. "When did he go?"
"About 'arf an hour ago," said Mr. Tasker; "just after the storm. I suppose that's what caused it, though it seems funny, considering what a lot he must ha' seen at sea. He said he'd go straight to bed and try and sleep it off. And I was to ask you to please not to make a noise."
Miss Drewitt swept past him and mounted the stairs. At the captain's door she paused, but the loud snoring of a determined man made her resolve to postpone her demands for an explanation to a more fitting opportunity. Tired, wet, and angry she gained her own room, and threw herself thoughtlessly into that famous old Chippendale chair which, in accordance with Mr. Tredgold's instructions, had been placed against the wall.
"SHE THREW HERSELF THOUGHTLESSLY INTO THAT FAMOUS OLD CHIPPENDALE CHAIR."
The captain stirred in his sleep.
(To be continued.)
Wild Western Journalism.
By an ex-Editor.
NE of the most thrilling occupations that a human being could follow in the old days—say a brief generation since—was that of editing a newspaper in a small American town. There was a fulness in the life, a feverish activity in the office and a perpetual spice of danger out of it, that made all other callings seem trivial. Things have changed a great deal in the past few years, but even yet Wild Western journalism can boast a flavour—a tang of its own. There is no other Press in the world quite like it; there is no similar body of men like those who engineer it. To our old friends, Mr. Pott, of the Eatanswill Gazette, and Mr. Slurk, of the Eatanswill Independent, their Occidental followers of the Arizona Arrow and the Tombstone Epitaph bear but faint resemblance. Perhaps in the birth-throes of English journalism—in the era of the Mercurius Pragmaticus and the Scot's Dove—the vicissitudes of editors were not dissimilar to those endured by the Colorado and Texas editor of yesterday, who was often his own publisher, his own printer, and his own editor rolled in one—and not only that, but was forced to perform these functions with a six-chambered revolver reposing gracefully, yet ominously, on his desk. As to his Protean character there has been little if any improvement. I cull the following from a recent issue of the Yampa (Oregon) Leader:—
The great city papers think they are smart in having a large staff, and, although we have not published ours before, we shall do so to take some of the conceit out of the city brethren. The editorial staff of the Leader is composed of: Managing editor, V. S. Wilson; city editor, Vic Wilson; news editor, V. Wilson; editorial writer, Hon. Mr. Wilson; exchange editor, Wilson; pressman, the same Wilson; foreman, more of the same Wilson; devil, a picture of the same Wilson; fighting editor, Mrs. Wilson.
By no means exaggerated is the description of a Western editor and his environment which was given some years ago by the authors of that amusing novel, "The Golden Butterfly." Prototypes of Gilead P. Beck could be found in abundance throughout the region west of the Mississippi. One of the most extraordinary characters and one of the most delightful was the late Alvin S. Peek—"Judge" Peek of Dakota—whose boast it was that he had "run" papers in nine different States and territories, had shot eleven men who disagreed with his opinions—three of them fatally—-and had never swallowed a word he had ever written, and who died universally respected in bed and at the ripe age—for Dakota—of fifty-one years.
But apart from any personal contact with the men who make the newspapers of the wild and woolly West it was once my experience to receive and peruse weekly many hundreds of their productions—"exchanges" they are called—and ranging from the Mother Lode Magnet of California and the Tombstone Epitaph of Tombstone, Arizona, to the Arkansas Howler and the Mustang (Colorado) Mail. Many a pleasant evening have I spent over them, and I still prize a scrap-book containing things to me as funny as I could find in any collection of wit and humour in the world. There is reason for this, because the backwoods and prairie Press of America is the nursery of American humour. It produced Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Petroleum V. Nasby, Joshua Billings, J. M. Bailey, Bob Burdette, Bill Nye, John Phœnix, and F. L. Stanton, to mention only a few of the humorists of international renown. I was well acquainted with Stanton at the time he was editing, printing, and publishing the famous Smithville News. Texas Siftings, the Arizona Kicker, and the Burlington Hawkeye have made the peculiarities and amenities of Western journalism familiar to English readers. Albeit, scattered through a dozen States and territories are thousands of small newspapers, eking out a precarious existence—full of native humour and sentiment—of which not even the resident of Chicago and St. Louis has so much as heard. How precarious that existence is may be judged from the following editorial appeal in the Gem, of Flagstaff, Arizona:—
Have you paid your subscription yet? Remember even an editor must live. If the hard times have struck your shebang, don't forget turnips, potatoes, and corn in the shock are most as welcome as hard cash at the Gem office. Also hard wood. Our latch-string is always out, or same (i.e., the turnips, etc.) can be delivered to our wife, who will give receipt in our absence.
One of the pleasing fictions preserved by the Western Press is, as we have seen, that of a plurality of editors. To these supposititious editors the most extraordinary titles and functions are bequeathed. On the front page of the Rising Star (Texas) X-ray no pretence of a numerous staff is made—Mr. Albert Tyson boldly announces himself as "horse, snake, lying, and fighting editor," while his motto is, "Do unto others as you would have them do to you, and do it fust!"
In mining districts or in the new territories, where a "tenderfoot" is made welcome in the "'eave 'arf-brick" fashion, the career of an editor is one of constant risk and turmoil. If he is young and inexperienced there are always lawless spirits ready to take a rise out of him, just for the pleasure and excitement of the thing.
Even in the civilized Southern States to the east of the Mississippi editing was not fifteen years ago a healthy pastime. On one occasion, when I was assisting a friend in Georgia, a citizen in a high state of excitement entered the "editorial sanctum"—they are very particular about the dignity of these epithets in America—and riddled the walls and my desk with bullets from a revolver.
Luckily, I happened not to be there, but in the composing-room, engaged in making-up the editorial page. My eye dwelt lovingly on a neat row of paragraphs, one beginning in this wise:—
If our esteemed (but chronically overheated) fellow-townsman, Sam Beale, will take our advice, etc.
"THE MALLET GRAZED MY EAR AND CRASHED INTO THE WALL."
At that moment three shots rang out in deafening succession. My journeyman "comp." dropped on his knees under the composing-case, and I was just deciding on my own line of conduct when the door was flung violently open, and Mr. Samuel Beale and I stood face to face. There were no words—none which I could bring my pen to write—but a heavy printer's mallet lay at one end of the make-up stone; this "our esteemed (but chronically overheated) fellow-townsman" seized and flung with all possible force straight at my head. Had his aim been true I should never have lived to tell this tale. As it was, the mallet grazed my ear and crashed into the wall, and the next object I saw was Beale wrestling with the door in a frantic effort to escape. The conclusion of this anecdote doesn't matter; but my printer was, I believe, finally obliged to haul me off the body of the prostrate Mr. Beale, upon whom I then and there felt it my editorial duty to take summary vengeance. Afterwards I wisely went armed, my victim having openly threatened to shoot me on sight. But the quarrel was eventually patched up, my chief inserting the following characteristic amende:—
The News-Democrat having on divers occasions, through a misapprehension of the true circumstances, stated that our esteemed townsman Sam Beale was a liar, a thief, and the meanest skunk in the whole State of Georgia, we beg hereby to retract this, and declare that our knowledge is solely confined to Pawnee County. Shake, Sam, and be friends!
One of the arts which a Western editor must understand is that of "padding," especially in his local "society" items.
Thus a Missouri paper, the Hannibal Hornet, is responsible for the following string of "personals":—
Dec. 7th. Miss Sadie James, of Tarrant Springs, is visiting her friend, Miss Annabel S. Colver, at the house of Miss Annabel S. Colver, on Decatur Street.
Dec. 8th. Miss Annabel S. Colver gave a party in honour of her guest, Miss Sadie James, who is visiting her at Miss Colver's beautiful home on Decatur Street, at which all the youth and beauty of Hannibal were present in full force.
Dec. 9th. Miss Sadie James, of Tarrant Springs, was observed out sleigh-riding with her charming hostess, Miss A. S. Colver, and their neat turn-out was shortly joined by several others.
Dec. 10th. Miss Sadie James terminated a pleasant visit to Hannibal and returned to Tarrant Springs.
But occasionally it happens that an exquisite item of "society" falls in the editor's way, without his having to do any "padding" at all, as in this from the Fairplay Flume, published in the flourishing Colorado "city" of Fairplay:—
Married. Markham—Seely.—At the residence of the groom's parents one of the most up-to-date weddings took place. (There had been an agreement between the bride and groom not to be married in the old-fashioned way, but to change the mode a little.) Therefore they were married at the residence of the father of the groom, Peter J. Seely, Esq. The groom wore a long pair of overalls and a cutaway coat. The bride wore a calico dress and apron. They both looked the picture of health, and were ably assisted—the groom by the bride's sister and the bride by Mr. Sam Meadows, a particular friend of the groom's. After spending a couple of weeks in the West they will return and settle down in their pleasant home, "Swandown"; Burlap, the furniture man at Five Forks, having already the contract to see that their home is properly furnished during their absence.
As to the titles of many of these Western productions, it might be supposed these spring from the fertile brain of some incorrigible humorist. But this is not so. Nothing could be more real—"alive and kicking"—in Anno Domini 1904, than the Creede (Colorado) Candle, the Arizona Arrow of Chloride, Arizona, the Rifle Reveille, the Rising Star X-ray, the Bald-Knob Herald, the Dallas World Hustler, the Kosse Cyclone, the Blooming Grove Rustler, the Carrizo Javelin, the Noyales Oasis, and the Devil's Lake Free Press. The names of some Western towns are fantastic to a degree, and the editorial love for alliteration is strong. Thus we have the Bliss Breeze, the Mustang Mail, and the Searchlight Searchlight in addition to those I have mentioned. What more natural in the "city" of Tombstone, Arizona, than that the newspaper should be entitled the Epitaph? Or that an Epitaph should take as naturally to obituaries as a duck to water or an Arizonian takes to his "gun"?
Jake Moffatt Gone Skyward!
As we feared on hearing that two doctors had been called in, the life of our esteemed fellow-citizen Jake Moffatt ered out on Wednesday last, just after we had gone to press. Jake was every inch a scholar and a gentleman, upright in all his dealings, unimpeachable in character, and ran the Front Street Saloon in the very toniest style consistent with order. Jake never fully recovered from the year he spent in the county jail at the time of the Ryan-Sternberg fracas. His health was shattered, and he leaves a sorrowing widow and nary an enemy.
The Tombstone men are handy with their "shooting-irons," as may be judged from the accompanying cheery advertisement last Christmas time.
The chief advertisements in the Epitaph, as in the other papers in the ranching country, consist of cattle-brands—i.e., rude outlines or silhouettes of equine or bovine quadrupeds, marked with the peculiar sign which distinguishes their ownership from others. By this means any strayed or stolen cattle are readily identified.
CATTLE-BRAND ADVERTISEMENTS.
As to the technical aspect of all the papers, which have so much in common, the reader may like to learn something. How are they produced so as to cover expenses in a "city" which boasts often fewer than one thousand inhabitants, rarely reaches two thousand, and not seldom has but five hundred souls? The answer is, in the first place, to be found in the invention of patent "insides" or "outsides." These are sheets ready printed on two of the four outside or inside pages; or, if it should happen to be an eight-page paper, six pages would be set up and printed at some great centre of population like Chicago or St. Louis. The invention is of English origin, but owes its vogue in America to A. N. Kellogg, who in 1861 was editing a little paper at Baraboo, Wisconsin. When the Civil War broke out his printers left him for the front, and, unable to get out his journal, he wrote to the publisher of the Madison Daily Journal for sheets of that paper printed on one side only with the latest available war news. The blank side the enterprising Kellogg filled up himself with big "block" advertisements and local items and the inevitable political "editorial," without which no American newspaper, however small, would be complete in its editor's eyes, although it is rarely read. In a short space of time other country editors followed Kellogg's example, and the Madison daily was printing newspapers for thirty different Wisconsin papers on one side of the sheet. The enterprise grew, Kellogg directed his entire attention to it, and ended by founding a business which to-day prints two thousand different sets or editions of patent insides.
At one time the same formes were used for hundreds of papers, only the titles, headings, etc., being changed to suit each customer. But now the editors of the Oasis and the Hustler have at least a hundred different styles of paper to select from. As to the cost, the editor pays hardly more than what the blank paper is worth, for the ready-print companies derive their profit from the advertisements, for which they reserve several columns of space. These country papers are usually sold in "bundles" of nine hundred and sixty copies, but the circulation may not be one-half of that figure.
We have seen that editing is a precarious livelihood, yet the editor manages to get along somehow. I have seen it publicly stated that there are four classes of men who usually own these small papers: farmers' sons who are too good for farming and not quite good enough to do nothing; school-teachers; lawyers who have made a failure of the law; and professional printers who have "worked their way"—these last two by far the most numerous class. They derive their chief profits from advertisements, for it is a point of honour with the local bankers, storekeepers, implement dealers, lawyers, doctors, liverymen, and blacksmiths to advertise in the local paper. Then there is the annual, and occasionally the semi-annual, circus advertisement, which may bring in as much as a hundred dollars, "if a picture of the elephant is thrown in." In the cattle-raising districts, as in Arizona, the different cattle-brands fill up a large part of the paper, as in the case of the Tombstone Epitaph. But besides the patent "inside," the editor of the little paper has another convenient expedient for filling up his columns. He can buy stereotype plates—that is, columns of interesting matter in thin sheets. These are made to fit metal bases with which he is supplied, and which he keeps in stock. Plates and bases being "type high," or level with the type of the newspaper, are cheap to send by rail, and being furnished to hundreds of other journals are of far higher literary character than the editor could turn out himself for treble cost.
I have said little of illustrated journalism in the Far West; but, as the accompanying reproduction humorously suggests, it is—inexpensive. And it may also betray the fount whence the authors of that amusing brochure, "Wisdom While You Wait," drew some, at least, of their inspiration.
