EDITORS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 165, 11 March 1864, Page 1 (Supplement)

EDITORS.

[From the Nelson Examiner, February 25.] An Editor has been defined as “ a miserable wretch who every day empties his brains that he may fill his stomach.” Whoever the happy author of this brilliant impertinence may have been, he certainly was altogether unacquainted with the matter which he took in hand. Editors have always been more or less the subjects of unthinking ridicule, and this not invariably from persons whose want of talent could but bring upon them contempt from the objects of their ilf-directed satire. Perhaps the most amusing and successful part of the “Pickwick Papers,” is the description of the two country Editors and their quarrels ; yet this is undoubtedly a marked instance of Mr. Dickens’s besetting sin - —the habit of gross exaggeration. Because a journal is insignificant, or its interest local, its Editor is not necessarily contemptible ; indeed the editorial position is such

that its difficulties and personal responsibility increase in an inverse ratio to the emolument or authority attendant upon it. Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones, Editor of the Squabhleton Herald or the Soughtansoldborongh Mercury , has difficulties to overcome, and an amount of personal responsibility to support, equal to, if not greater than that of the infiuental helmsman of the Daily Telegraph or the Morning Herald. An Editor who really fulfils his duty to the public, no matter how confined his sphere of action may be, is entitled to a considerable amount of respect, both for the power which ho wields, and the benefits which he confers.

In the first place, it should be well considered what sacrifices- he has to make. All individual prejudices must be set aside; all temptations to make his journal the channel of personal attacks, either on his own part or on that of his friends must be strenuously resisted; he is the servant of the public and no other influence must be allowed to direct or bias his pen. In the matter of correspondent’s letters, his difficulties are not small. The Scylla of private resentment threatens him on one side, while on the other yawns the Charybdis oi public opinion ; and between these two he must guide his editorial barque. To do this, a good deal of judgment and skill, moderation and good nature, is necessary, the editorial conscience must be frequently appealed to, and the editorial verdict be carefully considered, and given in such a maimer as never to wound unnecessarily the feelings of any individual, and yet not to lose sight of the final object of publicity, namely, the putting down of abuses, and furthering the public weal. This must always involve careful thought, and often much mental labour and wearying research on the part of the Editor. His office is no pleasant literary retreat; his duties no easy sinecure. All comfortable domestic arrangements, all delightful literary pursuits, must give way or be subordinate to the imperious requirements of the newspaper. In England, where most classes of people are greatly overworked, Editors, if (he truth were known, stand out from the masses by the peculiarly onerous character of their profession ; and in this country, where hard work is not the order of the day, the Editor is most certainly the hardest working man in the community. The ordinary routine of a newspaper office is laborious enough, but it is more particularly th: tension of the brain necessary to the due consideration of public rights and wrongs, which makes the Editor’s life burdensome, and his death too often premature. His labours c o not consist, as many people seem to suppose, in simply filling up a certain number of columns with letters and words so many times a week ; those letters and words must have a meaning, and a specific meaning; and the amount of good or evil which they are calculated to do depends. in part, upon the personal character of the Editor, aud in part, also, upon the assiduity with which he applies himself to his task. How often when the citizen “ good, easy man,” has drawn about his head the curtains of repose, when tho quick-eyed constable thinks of no “ summons” save that of his wife to supper, when the only ‘"steps” the members of (he road board arc considering are those which lead to their respective dormitories, when the last votary of the billiardtable plays a good-night cannon, and looks gloomily at the empty glass, might the Editor be seen still driving his weary pen over sheet after sheet, to feed the impatient and insatiable press, or busy amid bewildering heaps of “ copy” and “proof.” Yet lie must not be regarded as a mere quill-dri-ver ; he is tho guardian of the rights of the community, and a magistrate responsible to public opinion. JS'o man’s integrity is more severely tested than his ; no man’s private character more exposed to the attacks of malicious or unthinking individuals. The days of Editorial duelling indeed are, in British lands, gone by, but there are still ways of annoying an Editor, without spitting him with a rapier, or riddling him with a pistol bullet; ways by no means overlooked or neglected by a large class of persons, who do not consider, or do not make allowance for the perplcxaties of their self-made foe.

[Wo particularly draw the attention of our respectable contemporary to the lines which we have printed purposely in italics.— Ed. H. B. T.~\ Nothing can he more coioardly or in worse taste, than a direct attack upon an editor; not because he is unable to resent or -punish it, but because his position, and the duly which he owes to the public, naturally deter him from doing so. A personal attack upon an editor, is an indirect injury to the public safety ; for the more entirely that the editor is devoted to the service of the community, the less capable is he of resisting such an attack upon equal terms. Even the Editorial “ we” has been carped at as a mask for personal malice. Now this “ice” is, in fact, of groat service to every community possessing a newspaper, for it enables the Editor to separate his person from bis office, and to write more boldly on subjects which, more or less, impugn the powers that be, thus forming a simple but efficient safeguard to the freedom of the press. Perhaps no one lias so great a power of r jury as an influential Editor, and j’et no one is, by a strict adherence to his duty, so entirely prevented from using that power ; for be is to some extent a public inquisitor; he knows something about everybody, and often much more than anybody supposes ; so much, indeed, that somatiraes the reputation, if not the personal safety of individuals is in his hands, but his integrity is, or should be, unimpeachable. The name of Woodfall will go down to posterity with that of his more talented correspondent Junius, because no threats and no bribes were sufficient to make him untruo to the public trust, and every good Editor deserves to share the praise which Woodfall’s conduct gained for him. Were the perplexing niceties of an Editor’s position duly considered by the public, such sallies as that with which these remarks commence would be only striking by their stupidity, and those cases would be very rare in which an indignant individual considers himself entitled to burst into a newspaper office, and fiercely “ demand ” to “ see the Editor I”