Anonymous

“ Even if a boy is fourteen years old, he cannot help crying sometimes over a great disappointment.
Poor August put out his lamp with sorrowful breath and some of his tears fell upon the hot chimney which hissed as if in mockery.
Then he locked himself in his own room, threw himself on the bed, refused his breakfast and gave way to his grief.
Tom, Katie and Robbie all tried to get at him, but without avail. Katie coaxed with loving words. Robbie murmured, “Poor Gussie!” Tom said “Never mind, old fellow, if your ’speriment has failed. Come and play ball.” ”

“ The Night Editor is the man who stays until almost morning, who overlooks everything that goes into the paper, and who puts everything in according to the orders of the Editor-in-Chief, or of the Managing Editor. Well, he tells the Night Editor how he wants to-morrow’s paper made, what articles to make the longest, and what ones to put in the most important places in the paper. Then, perhaps, the City Editor comes knocking at the door, and enters, and he and the Editor-in-Chief talk over some stirring piece of city news, and decide what to say in the editorial columns about it. ”

“ And now that we have all the materials together to make an umbrella, let us go into a manufactory and see exactly how all the pieces are put together.
First, here is the stick, which must be “mounted.” By that you must understand that there are two springs to be put in, the ferule put on the top end, and if the handle is of other material than the stick, that must be put on.
The ugliest of all the work is the cutting of the slots in which the springs are put. These are first cut by a machine; but if the man who operates it is not careful, he will get some of his fingers cut off. ”

“ Perhaps you do not understand that a “natural” stick is one that has been a young tree, having grown to be just large enough for an umbrella stick, when it was pulled up, root and all, or with at least a part of the root. If, when you buy an umbrella that has the stick bent into a deep curve at the bottom for the handle, you may feel quite sure that it is of partridge wood, which does not grow large enough to furnish a knob for a handle, but, when steamed, admits of being bent. ”

“ Papa laughed. “You would find it warm work,” said he, “unless you’d a very long handle to your corn-popper.” And Kitty thought so too, as she went nearer the fiery furnace.
“You see,” said Mr. Carter, “these red-hot coals have been changed a great deal by the heat. They have given up all their gas and tar, and are themselves no longer coal, but coke. We shovel out this coke and use it as fuel in the furnaces down below to help heat up the next lot. Then new coal is put into the retorts, and they are closed up with iron plates, like that one lying ready on the ground.” ”

“ After the stick is mounted, how long, think you does it take to make an umbrella?
Well, my dears—it takes only fifteen minutes!
So you see that in the making of so simple an every-day article as an umbrella, that you carry on a rainy day to school, a great many people are employed; and to keep the world supplied with umbrellas thousands and thousands of men and women are 53 kept busy, and in this way they earn money to buy bread and shoes and fire and frocks for the dear little folks at home, who in turn may some day become umbrella makers themselves. ”

“ The helpers kept walking around the swelling globe, changing the bags to lower strands of the netting; and so it continued until by two o’clock the balloon was full—that is, allowance was made only for expansion when the balloon should have reached the clouds.
Every few moments the breeze would sway the monster to and fro, and it seemed chafing to break away. Soon after, the basket was tied upon the ring, and into this a great heap of sand-bags was piled, and a lot of ropes, an anchor, an aneroid, thermometer, compass and other accessories tied into the rigging or outside of the basket. ”

“ And the larger, the more popular, and the more widely read the paper, the better will be the prices which advertisers 14 will pay, and the more will be the advertisements. And so the publisher tries to sell as many papers as he can, partly because of the money which he gets for them, but more, because the more he sells the more advertising will he get, and the better rates will he charge for it. So, Tom, if you ever become the publisher of a newspaper, you must set your heart on getting an editor who will make a paper that will sell—whatever else he does or does not do. ”

“ Here it is, with wide columns, with small, compact type, with very little space wasted in head lines, eight large pages of it, something like 100,000 words printed upon it, and sold for four cents—25,000 words for a cent. It is a great institution—a power greater than a hundred banking-houses, than a hundred politicians, than a hundred clergymen. It collects and scatters news; it instructs and entertains with valuable and sprightly articles; it forms and concentrates public opinion; it in one way or another, brings its influence to bear 12 upon millions of people, in its own, and other lands. ”

“ The Snow-birds are very nimble on the ground, and, I guess, can eat faster and more for their size than any other winter bird. It is a very funny sight to see them scratch away the snow with their tiny feet to get their food, which, when insects and eggs are not to be had, is the seeds of many kinds of weeds that still rise above the snow, and along the border of the roads. ”

“ Though we are far ahead of our forefathers in our scientific apparatus for illuminating Light-houses, we have never equalled them in magnificence of architecture; for, in point of grandeur, the Tour de Corduan at the mouth of the River Garonne, in France, is probably the noblest edifice of the kind in the world, and it is nearly three hundred years since it was completed under Henry IV., having been twenty-six years in building. ”

“ They cannot make their nests on the limbs of trees. Oh, no, that wouldn’t do, for the first thing they knew the wind would blow, blow, and down would come their home. So they hunt around in the woods or along the rails and posts, for the nests in the wood that have been deserted by the woodpecker, who has flown away to a milder clime. ”

“ Yes, that paste of clay is to make it air-tight. The heat hardens the clay very quickly, so all the little cracks around the edge are plastered up. When the coal is shut up in the ovens, or retorts, the heat, as I just told you, divides it up into the different substances of which it is made; that is, into the coke which you have seen, a black, sticky liquid called tar, the illuminating gas, and more or less ammonia, sulphur, and other things that must be got rid of. ”

“ It is curious that the greater the snow and the colder the weather of winter, the whiter do the Snow-Buntings appear.
They are very swift flyers, and often in flocks of great numbers seem to be a cloud of snow-flakes driven before a storm. They make their nests in the fissures of the rocks, forming from grass, and feathers, 133 and the down of the Arctic fox, a very cosey home. They frequent the roads and lanes in the vicinity of Boston, and their white forms and busy beaks can be seen throughout the winter season. ”

“ The reason why the people of London ridiculed Jonas Hanway was because at that time it was considered only proper that an umbrella should be carried by a woman, and for a man to make use of one was very much as if he had worn a petticoat. ”

“ They are real weather prophets. When a storm is near at hand they gather together in large flocks, and work very, very diligently in search of food,—doubtless making provision for the time of wind and storm when they can get none.
But it is after the snow-storms, when the ground is white with the downy flakes, that the Snow-birds become the most friendly. How pleasant it is then to see them gather about the house, and around the barn and out-houses, to search for edibles. ”

“ Here, in the top story of the building, is the room of the type-setters. Every few minutes, from down-stairs in the Counting Room, comes a package of advertisements to be put into type; and from the Editorial Rooms a package of news and general articles for the same purpose. They do not trouble to send them up by a messenger. A tube, with wind blown through it very fast, brings up every little while a little leathern bag, in which are the advertisements or the articles—the “copy” as the type-setters call it. ”

“ In this room are thirty or forty type-setters. Each one of them has his number. When the copy comes up, a man takes it and cuts it up into little bits, as much as will make, say, a dozen lines in the paper, and numbers the bits—“one,” “two,” etc., to the end of the article. Type-setter after type-setter comes and takes one of these little bits, and in a few moments sets the type for it, and lays it down in a long trough, with the number of the bit of copy laid by the side of it. We will suppose that an article has been cut up into twenty bits. ”

“ Take for example, New York; and there is that great city, and Brooklyn, and Jersey City, and Hoboken, and Newark, and Elizabeth, to be looked after, as well as many large villages near at hand. And there is great competition between the papers, which shall get the most, the exactest, and the freshest, news. Consequently, each day, a leading New York paper will publish a page or more of local news. The City Editor has charge of collecting this news. He has, perhaps, twenty or twenty-five 20 men to help him—some in town, and others in the suburbs. ”