EXPERIENCES OF AN EDITOR.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXII, Issue 4322, 26 September 1921, Page 4

EXPERIENCES OF AN EDITOR.

Every editor who has been long in the business receives communications .of the most grotesque kind fi'om would-be authors. He does not print them, for he is not at. fiber’!/ io do so, but in most cases he preserves a few curiosities and reads them from time to time with enjoyment. Mr Edward Bok was entertained by the American Booksellers’ Association, and in his racy reply he was bold enough to quote from the singularities of this waste paper basket, or, ra-ther, .the singularities that have been preserved from his waste paper basket without getting their way into print. The Publishers’ Circular reprints from the American Publishers’ Weekly Mr Bpk’s speech, which is certainly very entertaining. He has been often irritated by people saying to him, as they say to every editor: “Why don’t the magazines print something that is worth reading ?” and replies that what these folk who ask this about the magazines don’t take into consideration is the stuff that they don’t read, that the magazines don’t print, and it is some stuff. He then gives a few ex-amples :

A MOONLIGH NIGHT. Here is a case jp which the author is trying to picture a quiet moonlight night, with stillness hanging all over the estate, and she wrote : “Night" was now deep around the great and gloomy mansion. Not one of its sleeping occupants moved: —not a sound was heard, save. when some bird in the tree-tops slipped inadvertently from its perch.” , A MURDER TRIAL. In a manuscript depicting a murder was this astonishing bit: “Th? murderer was evidently in quest of money, but unluckily Duncan had deposited all his funds in the bank the day before, and so he lost nothing but his life.” QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Mr Bok, before he became an editor had always believed that many ot the questions and answers printed in the magazine were made up in the office. Only a few days after he became an editor he got this letter : “I have become engaged to a very worthy young man, and we have fixed upon a date next month for our wedding. Now, what is the proper time for me to get my parent’s consent to my engagement ?” A SCHOOLGIRL’S GEM. The budding genius of the small town remembers the editor, especial! v the girl who hets read her graduation at the High School, and everybody says : “You ought to get that printed,” and from that moment the editor’s trouble begins. The teacher, physician, and minister back, her up, and the editor gets th.e precious composition. Here is one of them, ,a story which contained this remarkable sentence : “A bright tear glistened in the moonlight, as it fe’lli below on 1 the woodbine and honeysuckle that had twined each other’s self around each other’s self, as they climbed life’s ladder together.” AN ESSAY .ON WOMAN. One day the editor received a manuscript that was three hundred and eighty pages long, or an on Woman, and it began in this way:. “Woman—what is Woman ? Rather should we not ask, what is she hot ? Fair Woman ! Is there anything she. is not ? Beautiful Woman f What has she not done ? Nothing !