MY FIRST NEWSPAPER 



far on into the night getting off one thousand copies 

 of this wonderful production. Shades of Caxton I 

 It was the biggest freak ever struck off I should 

 imagine during the last two hundred years. You 

 should have seen the advertisements : the finest 

 variety of type ever designed since the founding of 

 the printing press. The front page made it. Here I 

 must proffer a very much belated apology to Mr John 

 Corlett, inasmuch as I freely "borrowed" some of the 

 brightest pars, from a few Pink 'Uns I had received 

 from home. Little scraps of poetry about a celebrity 

 in England I altered to suit the principal local 

 concert singer. The most outrageous piracy was 

 committed. 



Wirth regard to my own stuff, there was a column 

 story of love and murder printed in such gradations 

 of type that it might easily have served to indicate the 

 downward steps to the lowest depths of despair taken 

 by the heroine. They read it, though, and liked it, 

 which was rather extraordinary. The advertisers 

 *' kicked " a bit ; but they all paid up promptly to keep 

 me going. I had a very bad time with one local draper, 

 however. He had read one " borrowed " paragraph 

 which I had slightly altered, and added a little more 

 " nutmeg " to. He was not very busy that day, and 

 when I entered his establishment he met me with the 

 paper in his hand. There and then he entered into 

 a long homily on the iniquity of the par. His 

 obsequious assistants cast their eyes down as if to 

 support him, and I felt an outcast, a pariah, a 

 murderer of the Y.M.C.A. morals of the " rag trade." 

 I had no time to argue, however, so meekly asked him 

 if he would pay my account. This was the last straw ; 

 he hurled a torrent of invective at me. I pretended to 

 be much impressed by his address, and, sighing, said : 



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