passage or a phrase which was beyond his own comprehension. This kind of self-instruction tends to quicken and enlarge the mind, while it checks any tendency to vanity or inordinate self-appreciation. Many evidences of defective understanding and of liability to error, are brought home to the honest and anxious young reporter by his daily comparison of his own workmanship with that of more experienced men. CHAPTER V. COMMONPLACE HINTS. The Diary-Getting and Keeping in Touch with Local Public Life--A Central Repository - Preparing for Advancement. The young reporter, in entering upon an engagement on a weekly paper under which the whole reporting arrangements and supply are left in his hands, ought, in the first place, to attend to his diary. He will enter therein all the fixed dates of the statutory or ordinary meetings—parochial, municipal, educational, or ecclesiastical. As an aid to him in his work, he will consult the local guide-books and directories, and strive to obtain a knowledge of all the arrangements or machinery by which the local public life is directed. To prevent any omission or mistake, and to secure notification of special meetings, he will politely ask the clerks or secretaries of the local bodies or authorities to enter his name on the lists of persons to be summoned. He will supplement these precautionary provisions by a daily examination of the advertisements published in the newspapers and of the placards posted on the walls. He will take note too of the intimations of adjourned meetings and of court fixtures. Further, he will make himself well acquainted with all public officials, from the policeman upwards, and will, by his evident appreciation of their help and hints, encourage them to keep him informed as to all that is passing or that they anticipate. He will seek to become the central repository of local affairs, and be recognised as the most knowing man in the community. In proportion as he displays vigilance and prudence in these respects, will he make his services efficient, will he increase the number of his "hits," as the discovery and effective use of exclusive information are professionally styled, and will he be marked out for promotion when a vacancy on the staff of a larger weekly or of a neighbouring daily paper Advancement is far more generally obtained by honest and intelligent service of the nature described and the reputation it wins, than by application sent in response to advertisements. Vigilance and enterprise, conjoined with intelligence and literary aptitude, sooner or later bring the welcome summons, “Friend, go up higher.” occurs. CHAPTER VI. THE COMPOSING-ROOM NURSERY. The Compositor's Training - His General Knowledge— Reporters' English — The Institute of Journalists' Scholarship Test — A ANOTHER nursery for the reporting-room is the compositors' companionship. Only a workman of exceptional intelligence can satisfactorily fill a compositor's frame in a newspaper office. His training for the "case" is slow, but sure and thorough. At one stage of his apprenticeship he acts as reading-boy for the reader; and as all classes of copy — advertising, editorial, reporting, parliamentary, telegraphic, shipping, and commercial - pass through his hands, he has the opportunity of noticing how it has been manipulated by careful and experienced sub-editors, observing what has been struck out as verbiage, dangerous, or otherwise unfit, and how the whole has been prepared for the printer. After a little experience at “the frame” the apprentice is permitted to take his stand and turn alongside of the journeymen ; and by the time he has В completed his seven years' training, he has learned more than can be acquired at “either school or college.” He has become familiar with all the questions of the day, continental, foreign, and colonial, as well as law; or skilled, it may be, in the lore of the Stock Exchange room or the professional broker, although not given to speculation; or an adept in all manner of sporting quotations and affairs, although seldom showing much inclination to betting propensities. That experience is, so far as it goes, the very best training that can be got for reporting and sub-cditing work; and not unfrequently clever and ambitious young compositors pass from their frames to the higher branches of the profession. In some cases a defective scholastic education on the part of these men justifies the sncer about “reporters' English ” which is occasionally hcard. In the carly future, however, it may be assumed that all ground for this depreciatory taunt will be removed. The Institute of Journalists has established a scholarship test, and no recruit who fails to pass this examination will receive the official mark or badge of journalistic qualification and status. Fortunately, however, for the apprentice compositor who has been put to work before his education has been far advanced, and who |