WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The reporter makes gossip a business. He knows all the news of the
city that is published, and he knows a good deal more that is never
published. He asks you when he meets you, “Well, is there anything new?”
and expects that you will disgorge all that you have heard that day,
even if it concerns a matter that for your own interest had better not
obtain publicity. He will think you a very mean man if you conceal from
him the fact that your daughter has run away with the milkman, that you
yourself have had a quarrel with your wife because she preferred the
society of a man who carried a blue bag over his shoulder to that of her
husband, or that you are short in your accounts and intend emigrating
that night to a land of more salubrious climate than this. If you have
had the misfortune to undergo any of these unpleasantnesses, or even
others of lesser moment, the inquiring man of letters will feel utterly
disgusted and aggrieved if you refuse to let him pluck the heart out of
your mystery. If, however, you get the start of him and put the inquiry,
“anything fresh?” you have got him. He will probably betray his chagrin
by replying that the freshest thing he has seen that day is yourself, or
employ some other threadbare witticism to cover his defeat. He will do
anything but disclose to you his budget of facts. He probably has in his
notebook things that will make the hair on the scalp of the great-headed
public stand on end when his paper is issued and strewn broadcast among
the people, but no word will he breathe to you of them. He knows that you
would tell the first person you met, and thus
SET THE NEWS FLYING
until a rival journalist “got on to it.” When the news is actually made
public through his paper, he has no further interest in it. It is a
lemon that has been sucked, and has now no piquancy for him. This is his
attitude towards the information he gleans that is published, but still
more reticent is he in regard to what he does not publish. The reporter,
bit by bit, loses, like the doctor and the lawyer, his faith in human
nature. Like them he often gets glimpses in the back corners of people’s
characters, which back corners are as guiltily hidden from the eye of
man as the favorite sultana of an eastern monarch. As he goes along the
street he sees many men who know him not, but whom he knows well. He
knows of certain facts concerning them which the rest of the world knows
nothing of. He sees them in places of honor and trust, in the mart, and
in the church, and in the ball-room, and yet he knows that were those
little damaging occurrences “learned by rote and cast into his teeth,”
the trader, the deacon and the partner in the dance would shun them like
lepers and pass by on the other side. Many a reputation is saved by his
leniency. One of his commonest experiences, next to requests to put in
certain names in his paper, is requests to keep others out. Gentlemen who
have had the misfortune to appear before the Magistrate in the morning
are the most frequent attenders in reportorial rooms for this purpose.
They have first made application to the reporter in the Police court, and
he has referred them to the city editor. That gentleman generally asks,
Why should the report be mutilated for the purpose of keeping your name
out of the paper? He points out that the public pay their money for a
paper with the understanding that all the city happenings that came under
THE REPORTER’S EYE
should be found recorded therein. The fact that you were discovered at
two in the morning seated on a wood-pile, rocking a loose plank and
singing hush-a-by-baby, evidently suffering from the hallucination that
you were performing a sweet domestic duty, would be a very interesting
item to serve up for the delectation of the people who live next door
to you, and indeed to all those who know you. Now why should I rob them
of that pleasure. Then the supplicant is heard as to why. If it is a
first offence the city editor, following the Magistrate’s rule, in
all probability grants the prayer. This is the case of a man who has
substantial standing in the community. But all kinds turn up on the
same errand. A York street tough came in one day, and in a manner which
was a curious blending of promises and threats, asked to have his name
suppressed.
“You want your name kept out? Why it’s been in our paper a dozen times
for worse things than fighting. Go away boy, go away.”
“Say, nobsy, I’ve got a new girl and she’ll give me the shake if she sees
that.”
“Can’t do it sir.”
“Well, say, just make it read that I knocked the tar out o’ Mulligan will
you, and that’ll make it all right.”
Sometimes a clerk in an office or store creeks up the stairs and implores
you for God’s sake not to insert his name. He’ll lose his situation, and
when you agree to do so the gratitude that looks out of his watery eyes
is unmistakable. The poor fellow, in spending a five dollar bill on his
drunk, probably swallowed a whole week’s salary, and has been thereby
sufficiently punished. To this specimen the whole business possesses a
ghastly seriousness, but there is another class who treat it as a huge
joke. It has been noticed that men of this sort are usually Englishmen,
and their desire to have their name omitted from the Police court roster
has its rise in their fear of the ridicule of their fellows rather than
any loss of character or position in consequence of its being made public.
THESE FELLOWS WILL LAUGH
and say they have been on “a bit of a spree and got lugged by a bobby,”
and ask in an off-hand way, “keep it hout will you, mistah,” and
sometimes “mistah” does.
Not quite a hundred years ago a man came into the presence of the city
editor—tall, distinguished-looking man, clothed in the best West of
England tweed. City editor very small person compared with man. Man takes
chair offered him, and says, “I’ve got into a little scrape which you can
help me out of if you would.” City editor ought to feel flattered, that
man would condescend to use him to help him out of a scrape. But he is
very ungrateful and answers coldly: “How can I help you?”
“My wife,” says the man “is one of the most unreasonable creatures in the
world when she gets into a passion. I came home the night before last
after having done a hard day’s work in the store, and when I asked for a
little supper she started to abuse me. She said a lot of mean things. I
asked her to shut up for God’s sake, and she wouldn’t, and then, getting
a little hot I tried to stop her tongue by putting the pillow on her
head. That wouldn’t have hurt a lamb, but she struggled so that she
struck her head against the corner of the bed post and cut it. Then she
ran out on the street, and she has disgraced me. A policeman got her, and
as there was some blood on my wife’s face he arrested me. I was bailed
out immediately afterwards, but heavens, I had to appear in the court
this morning. I don’t care so much myself as for my wife and family. I
am a subscriber and advertiser in your paper, and I hope you’ll not say
anything about it.”
“Yes,” said the city editor, “I have heard something about the case. You
got home at half-past one and wanted your wife to get out of bed and cook
you a steak. Some women are very unreasonable! After your working from
ten in the morning until five at night, with only an hour for dinner! It
was a shame. If she had only thought of the long time it took you to get
home she would have had some idea how tired you were!”
“Well, sir, I didn’t come here to be made a target for your humor. Where
is the editor in chief?”
“You will find him down stairs, sir.”
But the editor was out.
He is always “out” when cowardly cattle who beat their wives are around.