4. Will two ladies on Clark Street car, that noticed two gents in front of Grand Opera House about seven last evening, please address Jands, Enquirer Office.
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A short time ago a man named Smith was bitten by a rattlesnake and treated with whisky at a New York hospital. An English paper would have just mentioned the fact, and have the paragraph headed: “A Remarkable Cure”; or, “A Man Cured of a Rattlesnake Bite by Whisky”; but a kind correspondent sends me the headings of this bit of intelligence in five New York papers. They are as follows:
1. “Smith Is All Right!”
2. “Whisky Does It!”
3. “The Snake Routed at all Points!”
4. “The Reptile is Nowhere!”
5. “Drunk for Three Days and Cured.”
Let a batch of officials be dismissed. Do not suppose that an American editor will accept the news with such a heading as “Dismissal of Officials.” The reporter will have to bring some label that will fetch the attention. “Massacre at the Custom House,” or, “So Many Heads in the Basket,” will do. Now, I maintain that it requires a wonderful imagination—something little short of genius, to be able, day after day, to hit on a hundred of such headings. But the American journalist does it.
