A NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2146, 23 March 1908, Page 2

A NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT

From the “Inky Way” .in the Sydney “Bulletin”: —The “Morning Banner’s” correspondent at Wild Dog was an energetic wretch who (labored under the delusion that the eyes of the universe were on his native town. The illness and death of Muldoon’s best cow he considered well worth a quarter of a column, so he wrote out a heartbreaking account of about that length and wired it in. The sub. in the city cut it down to this: “Wild Dog—Friday. Mr. Muldoon yesterday lost a valuable cow by poisoning.’’ The correspondent swallowed the insult, and kept his eye skinned for the next sensation. It came. The Olodleapers celebrated their golden wedding, and brought a camera man 70 mules to photograph them sitting in the midst of their 5500 descendants. The “Morning Banner” anan got to work on it a week beforehand, and wrote an uncondensed history of the whole family from the minute the old people stepped ashore from the emigrant ship. The next day there was a three-line notice in the “Banner” : “Wild Dog, Thursday—Mr. and Mrs. Clodleaper celebrated their golden wedding yesterday. They have' 850 descendants.” The infuriated correspondent was drafting a letter to the “Banner” pointing out the wrong done the Clodleapers in crediting them with only 850 descendants, "instead of 8500, when a snappv letter reached him, asking him for the Deity’s sake to be brief and exercise \ little judgment. The journalist of Wild Dog seethed with fury-, but derided to give the “Banner” one more fliance. It had been a particularly dry season at Wild Dog, and for months the whole countryside had been looking at the brassy skies and hoping and praying and oyrsing for aiiii. The future of the district hung in the question of water. Couples, whispering their plans in the moonlight-, told each other they would get married when the rain came. The ‘‘Banner” man’s account- of tlie belated downpour was a great effort. It described in vivid (language the dripping hillsides and the little rills of water laughing amongst the undergrowth. It told how the roads changed in a few minutes from dust to mud, and liow the clouds, when they had poured their glorious gift all over Wild Dog, “hung like a great canony above the jubilant town.” He'iiad it all finished long before the rain started, and when the heavens opened and performed just as he had described, ho rushed through the deluge and set the wires humming. When the “Banner’ came to hand next evening the correspondent opened liis copy avrth trembling hands, and read : W lid Dog —-Wednesday.—Three ineh.es of rain fell here last night.” And along with it came a telegram giving him the sack. That was the last straw, and lie wired the “(Banner” his candid opinion of it. _ In reply he got a telegram giving him the sack again. That was the still more final -straw.