Unfortunately for the swindler, the first letter that he opened was evidently Miss Bunde’s, for he called her up Wednesday afternoon and made an appointment at the Hixon Hotel for last evening.

She at once notified the police and Detective Sullivan was detailed to accompany her to the hotel. When Howell appeared and recognized Miss Bunde as his Denver victim, he endeavored to leave but was arrested by Sullivan.

At the police station he gave his address as Yukon, Alaska. In his pockets were found letters from several Kansas City women who had replied to his advertisements in that city, and the police believe that he is wanted in other places on similar charges.

SUGGESTIONS

  1. Write legibly; use a typewriter whenever possible.
  2. Double or triple space your typewritten or longhand copy.
  3. Never write on both sides of the sheet.
  4. Make your meaning absolutely clear to the rapid reader.
  5. Be concise; don’t use needless words.
  6. Use superlatives sparingly.
  7. Find the one noun to express the idea, the one adjective, if necessary, to qualify it, and the one verb needed to give it life.
  8. Get life and action into your story whenever circumstances warrant.
  9. Use original expressions; avoid trite and hackneyed phrases.
  10. Remember that every one of your mistakes adds to the work of your superiors.
  11. Study and follow the peculiarities of the style of your paper.
  12. Make your paragraphs short and concise.
  13. Avoid choppy, disconnected short sentences.
  14. Don’t overload the first sentence by elaborating on the essential points.
  15. Select the most interesting phase of the news as the “feature” of the story.
  16. Put the “feature” in the first group of words at the beginning of the lead.
  17. Answer satisfactorily in the “lead” the questions—Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How?
  18. Seldom “play up” the time or place as the feature.
  19. Avoid the hanging, or dangling, participle, particularly at the beginning of the lead.
  20. Don’t put important particulars of the story in the last paragraphs where they may be cut off in the “make-up.”
  21. Avoid beginning successive paragraphs with the same phrase or construction.
  22. Use an unconventional form of “lead” when the news justifies it.
  23. Tabulate on a separate sheet significant statistics, lists, excerpts, or summaries, so that they may be “boxed.”
  24. Don’t suppress news; refer all requests for such suppression to your superiors.
  25. Put the mark (#), or the figures 30 enclosed in a circle, at the end of every story.

PRACTICE WORK

(1) Point out the faults in the following story and correct them by rewriting it.

Suspected of starting over a score of fires in the downtown district within a month and confessing starting nineteen, with six[Pg 95] false alarms in three months, Henry Handifort, a South Side boy, was arrested after a fire early today.

In a confession to the police Handifort, who is 16 years of age, said he began his career as a firebug when 5 years old, but after starting three fires was so punished by his parents that he refrained from further operations until a few months ago. He said his ambition was to be a fireman and that he started the fires to be on hand when the firemen came so he could help them. He said he enjoyed seeing the apparatus turn out.

The fires to which he confessed caused a total loss of $25,000. His climax came Sunday night, when three fires caused $8,000 loss. The boy, then under suspicion, was watched carefully, and a fire early today brought his arrest.