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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. NOV 3 
Citaanp 
THE WEATHER. 
E. P. POWELL. 
“ Come, husband, out of this; there'll be a storm to¬ 
day. 
Get up, and fly nround, or else you’ll lose your hay.'” 
“ Good wife, the sky Is clear, and not a cloud In 
sight.” 
“ No matter, there will be a heavy storm 'fore night 
The flies come In, tn swarms—they know a thing or 
two: 
The cats are eating grass; I’ve heard the black cuck¬ 
oo! 
The smoke drops down from all the chimneys round' 
The swallows fly so low. they almost touch the 
ground. 
And not a drop of dew, is on the sparrow-grass: 
The pitcher sweats, and water stands on every glass; 
The wind Is in the east, the hens their feathers oil; 
And, look you now,—how quick potatoes dry do 
boll! 
The children get up cross, and do not care for play; 
Come, out of bed, good man, and hurry In that 
hay!" 
“ Good wife, be still!—there’s not a cloud in all the 
sky! 
Sty bones ache now; another hour I'll lie." 
“ It is the storm that’s in your bones and In mine, 
too! 
You know I feel storms always hours before they're 
due! 
The camphor m the bottle sinks the chine below: 
There was a ring around the moon last night, you 
know! 
The peacock squalls at Squires’, upon the Christmas 
Hill, 
And Guinea-hens,—although they never are quite 
still. 
The hay’ll be wet, and spoiled; the storm will sure be 
here! 
And If you won’t be warned In time, 'twill cost you 
dear! 
The locust leaves are folded: cows uneasy low; 
I hear the rawing of the raven and the crow! 
My corns are shooting sharp; I tell you once again,— 
Good man. there will, there will, there will, there 
will be rain!” 
“O wife! your prophecies don’t half of them come 
true: 
Though many a storm, your tongue Is powerful to 
brew!” 
THE MAKING OF A DAILY NEWS¬ 
PAPER. 
The price of several New York dailies has 
been recently reduced. The public now get 
the large eight, twelve, and often thirty-two 
page dailies for half the sum formerly paid. 
The publishers affect to act with generosity 
toward the public by giving them the benefit 
of the exceptionally low cost of paper. The 
intelligent public see more in it than generosi¬ 
ty. They see that competition is very sharp. 
New publications spring np and serve the pub¬ 
lic with news more cheaply and perhaps more 
attractively than the heavy old organs do. 
The number of those who must read as they 
run and cannot read much or very thought¬ 
fully, increases us the heat and bustle of busi¬ 
ness increase. The demand for condensed, 
short news-reports and comments must be 
met. There is a growing tendency in the 
press to treat events and people with a spice 
of humor, ridicule or cynicism which is due to 
a popular taste in these directions which in¬ 
creases by what it feeds on. The publishers 
of daily papers are chiefs anxious to make 
something that will sell. They cannot afford 
to be seekers after the true, the beautiful and 
the good at the expense of failure and bank¬ 
ruptcy. They think they have their fingers on 
the pulse of the public and know its wants. 
It is a fair question to ask whether the pub¬ 
lisher’s responsibility begins aud ends at the 
selling point; whether he ought not to create 
as well as minister to public taste. Thero is a 
great mission for publishers in molding and 
elevating public taste. To use this taste sim¬ 
ply as a stopping-stone to a fortune is mercen¬ 
ary and heartless. No one who knows the 
power he wields and who cares for the well¬ 
being of the community can be so selfish and 
soulless. 
THE PUBLISHER AS A REFORMER. 
The immediate business necessities of a pub¬ 
lisher sometimes forbid his becoming a re¬ 
former. He cannot afford to try expensive 
experiments. The public are fickle. He must 
prepare appetizing dishes and set them within 
reach. If he aims too high he will miss his 
market and his paper become waste paper. 
And h must uot offend; but he may always 
serve something of a kind, aud in a style just 
a little higher thau the multitude crave, aud 
which, on ft second or third taste, will please 
and benefit them. In thus satisfying but not 
surfeiting appetite, aud iu thus inciting desire 
for more and better supplies, the publisher will 
gradually be raising bis readers to his own 
plane, and at the same time increasing his 
circulation, his power and his income. 
THE COST. 
Few people have any thought of what it costs 
to bring put, each morning, for two or three 
cents, the paper which they read so lightly and 
then toss so carelessly aside. First, it must 
have its reporters in many parts of the world. 
Aside from the press reports it receives in 
common with other papers, there are those 
from its own special reporters scattered every¬ 
where. Important addresses and great cases 
in the courts will require short-hand reports 
true to the very word, while most news will 
require reporting with a skill even higher than 
that of the short-hand reporter. Objective 
reporting requires quickness of eye, sympathy 
aud aptness for seizing and describing, in a 
takiug way, just those features which appeal 
to the popular taste. Mr. Charles Dickons is 
said to have been the great prototype of the 
modern descriptive reporter, whose style of 
hightening a picture by the accumulation of 
minute details is caught from this brilliant 
word-painter and vivid narrator. Home of the 
reporters for our dailies are cheap men; but 
those resident at or sent to important centres 
of events and power must be men of ability, 
of large acquaintance and influence. They 
must be such persons and live in such a way 
as to have access to the sources of information 
and power. Such men are expensive. 
The transmission of news, too, involves at 
times tremendous expense and sacrifice. To 
say nothing of private wires, often maintained 
in connection with a correspondent, think of 
getting dispatches from the wildernesses of 
Africa, or from the front of au army fighting 
and moving from place to place, and far from 
any lines of conmmuieatiou with home The re¬ 
porter often, after bearing the fatigues of 
forced marches and the perils of battle, must 
write his dispatches in a hovel by the light of 
a tallow candle, or on the grouud by the light 
of a bivouac-fire, and then mount his horse 
or mule and ride miles by night, that we may 
read the account of march or fight as we sip 
our coffee at breakfast. One item in the cost 
of such news too often escapes the reader, who 
forgets the terrible loss of life, and worse loss 
of health, suffered by these reporters at the 
front. In the Russo-Turkish war, when postal 
and telegraphic lines were in the hands of the 
Russians, dispatches had to be sent from 
Bucharest by couriers, mounted on fleet horses, 
and by relays as far as to the frontier of Aus¬ 
tria, from which the telegraphic rate to Lon¬ 
don was a little over a dollar a line. Even at 
this cost, the papers contained daily ten or 
twelve columns of telegrams from Bucharest. 
And this was cheap compared with the price 
paid for messages from Afghanistan in the 
earlier stages of the w ar with Shere Ali.when 
they cost over a dollar a word! 
THE EDITORIAL CORPS. 
Reports and dispatches form the bulk of 
the paper; but these must be edited. The 
sub-editor, and his corps of assistants in the 
office, find plenty to do reading, sorting, and 
fitting these reports, etc., for their columns, 
collecting and arranging news and other 
matter in proper shape aud proportions. 
How much and what news shall go to the 
public rests with this corps. Only great 
quickness, good memory, caution and expe¬ 
rience, enable a man to decide at a glance on 
the mass of matter coming before him. It is 
his business to compress the most variety of 
interesting matter possible into bis space. 
Select, abridge, and condeuse as he may, he 
will always find the bounds assigned him too 
narrow, and a few of his readers will inevit¬ 
ably believe that they get less than their 
share of attention. 
In a thoroughly organized force the editor’s 
staff includes reviewers and critics in litera¬ 
ture, fine arts, music, and the drama. This 
staff, however, is more generally understood 
to comprise only the editor in chief and those 
gentlemen associated with him as writers of 
the most important leading articles which 
give the paper its political character. The 
heavy responsibility rests on them; and men 
with the rare combination of talents required 
iu them are hard to find. They must be able 
to write at a moment’s notice and without ex¬ 
trinsic aid, on any subject, with sense, spirit 
and gracefulness. No urnount of culture, 
however indispensable this may be, is an ade¬ 
quate qualification for their duties. By ft 
natural instinct the successful editorial writer 
so feels in advance the coming events, that he 
is never surprised and never without an ex¬ 
planation. To him each event is one of a 
series of orderly development iu the life of 
the world. 
Aside from the regularly employed force 
on a great daily, there are many occasional 
correspondents, loosely attached writers who 
must be puid. This is uo inconsiderable item 
in the aggregate. Even the penny-a-liners’ 
contributions iu the city of New York cost, a 
large sum in u year, though each item be 
small. 
When the news is gathered, the reports, 
press dispatches, correspondence, editorials 
are all written, and the brain-work of the 
paper is done and paid for, the work and 
cost of issuing it is far from finished. Au 
army of type-setters, proof-readers, makers- 
up, electrotypers, pressmen and earners, 
must each and all work late aud early to 
bring out the paper iu time. Indeed, when 
we consider the capital and labor involved in 
the Issue of the modern, large daily newspaper, 
the brains, energy, and business and scientific 
skill necessary to make it a success; when we 
look at. its pages, and see in this microcosm 
the reflection of a day’s history of the world, 
we can only wonder at what man has wrought 
—aud all for two cents a copy t 
CONDUCTED BY MISS RAY CLARK. 
FANCY COSTUMES FOR CHILDREN. 
It is our desire to be of some assistance to 
our lady readers in using such cuts as we do 
iu this department, aud it affords us pleasure 
to thus acknowledge the many kind aud en¬ 
couraging words that have come to us. We 
shall continue to have the best interests of 
the home at heart,. 
Our illustration iu this issue is somewhat of 
a departure from the extremely practical or 
useful, but the little folks want something for 
special occasions us well as the older ones; 
and Christmas will lie here before loug, with 
a train of exhibitions, parties, etc,, and it is 
well to liave some plan for them. So wo 
offer this design because it is simple, quaint, 
and sufficiently fancy for an occasion where 
costumes are to be worn. 
OUR AMERICAN GIRLS. 
This is a theme worthy of the best writers. 
To call forth articles which will tend to pro¬ 
mote the health, beauty, and intelligence of 
Our American Girls “is a consummation de¬ 
voutly to be wished.” The Rural New- 
Yorker deserves the thanks of the public for 
making this one of the subjects for prize essays- 
We are glad, too, that in this contest the wo¬ 
men alone are permitted to take a part. We 
trust there will be numerous articles on 
this subject, aud at least a half dozeu of the 
best will be published aud read by our girls 
whose eyes are too frequently turned toward 
the sterner sex to catch a gleam of light, hope 
and love. 
It is our purpose to notice only two types of 
our American girls—the healthy and the un¬ 
healthy. The former, thank Heaven, yet 
constitute a large clans—our pride aud cyno¬ 
sure at home and our boast and praise abroad. 
Here we find all thut is admirable in form, 
expression and action. Here, too, we find all 
that is really charming iu American girlhood. 
True, fashion is a tyrant, and assumes to 
preside over the Court of Beauty, dictating the 
color of hair, the shude of the eye, and the 
requirements of bight, form, and complexion. 
Blit to you who enjoy the charms of good 
health with all its susceptibilities for enjoy¬ 
ment, whatever else you lack, no edicts of this 
usurped ruler can turn from you the admira' 
tion of the thoughtful and considerate of your 
kind. Be assured that health is the best com¬ 
modity iu the market, aud it has its host of 
seekers. Yours is more valuable to you than 
pearls and diamonds, and you are rich with¬ 
out them. 
We now turn with regret from this human 
garden of freshness and beauty, typed by the 
queenly Rose, to a much larger one, where the 
blighted Lily droops under the cankering in¬ 
fluence of disease. Tho picture is sad to con¬ 
template But these loss fortunate girls aro 
not so much to be censured as parents and 
guardians. We are aware that much imper¬ 
fection is due to hereditary effects, but more 
to ignorance. Much is chargeable to our false 
system of education, both at home and in our 
under schools and colleges. i lu* system of 
Instruction has thought fit to divide our inse¬ 
parable unity into a three-fold being—body, 
mind aud soul. The Church undertakes the 
education of the one, the school the other, but 
what institution, the first aud most important ? 
How many young j4rls do we meet with pale 
cheeks and clouded eyes, from whom the sacred 
charms of health have departed forever. 
For these dogcuerating tendencies which 
are yearly becoming more palpable, we 
arraign the guilty, and bring them to the bar 
of justice for public rebuke, counsel and direc¬ 
tion. We arraign the parents who have 
marked these human buds with poison spots, 
and whose instructions in the trying days of 
girlhood have been erroneous, or at least in. 
complete. Wo arraign the teachers whose 
lessons have gone uo deeper than the head. 
We arraign the clergy who have spent a life of 
up-hill labor aud advice to make our girls 
religious before they gave them rational, 
healthy enjoyment. And lastly, we arraign 
the quacks, the Rill-peddlers, with or without 
an M. D. diploma, who, by mistaken confi¬ 
dence have been called to administer to them 
for some slight indisposition, aud who, with 
owlish demeanor, have pronounced the symp¬ 
toms indicative of fractured liver, watered- 
brain, depleted spleen or shriveled kidney, 
and whose prescriptions have produced nausea, 
salivation and strangled vitality. Weary 
weeks pass, aud the patient slowly rallies, aud 
the doctor receives the usual compliments. 
But, alas! a fair young life has been wrecked 
in the maelstrom of ignorance and in the broad 
noon-day of our lxiostad civilization. Better 
that she should die at one fell stroke by the 
knife of the assassin, than endure the 
Promethean tortures that must follow. Goue 
is the luster of the eye, the elastic step, the 
joyous laugh, the rounded form, and the pearl 
white teeth no longer stand at the door as 
similtudes of health, beauty and good diges¬ 
tion. 
The eloquent Burke in speaking of Marie 
Antoinette, Quoeu of France, thought that “ a 
thousand swords would have leaped from 
their scabbards to avenge even a look that 
threatened her with insult.” Shall the sword 
of justice be withheld in this case in defonse 
of our dear Maries? Let us with one voice 
answer ” No!” Too loug has quackery held 
sway in this country, and while we are reform¬ 
ing abuses let us not forget this one. Let the 
grand army of prohibitionists add pills and 
poisonous drugs to their list of interdicted 
articles aud include t he apothecary with the 
saloonist. 
For tho dear young girls who have been 
robbed of health and beauty by one or all 
these evils we have nought but words of sym¬ 
pathy and commiseration. But we Know you 
cannot forget the rock on which your barque 
was rudely driven by misguided pilots, of 
“•your own sweet will,” and you will teach 
your sisters to shun it. 
To those Who yet retain the freshness and 
beauty of girlhood, whose sleep is still renew¬ 
ing aud free from dreams as innocent as child¬ 
hood. we say, all hail t Lend us a hand in 
helping to build iu America a higher, truer 
aud nobler womanhood. Prove to the world 
that health is “the one thing needful,” aud 
without it life lias no charm. Shed around 
you freshness and fragrance like the flower 
that never withers or dries up, but in its 
heaven-appointed time drops its petal* one by 
one. Avoid dissipation, dissipated thoughts, 
dissipated habits and dissipated society. Cease 
“setting lip with that feller” till the wee 
hours of morning. Woo the goddess of sleep 
and she will preserve your charms. Guard 
well your thoughts. Think of the beautiful, 
true and good. Sublime thoughts make sllli 
lime lives. Live for a purpose, and leave your 
work only when God calls you. G. l, t. 
