TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Southland Times, Volume VII, Issue 518, 13 July 1866, Page 3

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

(From the New York Times, Eeb. 20.) We receive, in one way and another, two or three hundred communications in each week. Of these we print perhaps a dozen. Necessarily, a great many well-meaning friends are disappointed in not finding their contributions in our columns. A few words of advice to correspondents generally may be useful although this may be the hundredth repetition of the main points. 1. Never expect to see your manuscript after sending it to a newspaper. We have distinctly announced, again and again, that we do no; preserve rejected articles. Had we done so, the Times building would long ago have been stocked as closely as a pawnbroker's shelves. 2. Never send a communication -without; giving your real name and address. Moi'e than three fourths of the matter sent to us goes into the waste basket without being read, because we find upon them no real names. Any designing fellow may write stuli to put a newspaper in a wrong position ; hence we insist upon the actual personal responsibility, and in important cases we must be sure that the names are bonafide. 3. Don't write long essays. Give us new ideas; give us short, practical, common-sen6e (and brief) notes upon the vital questions of the hour. Mind the hint to be brief — very brief. Life is short ; newspapers are circumscribed ; space is valuable ;. words are many, and writers are over-garrulous. If you are convinced that you can add an idea or an item tbat will benefit or enlighten your fel-low-men, say it, but say it in the briefest possible space. Don't "take my pen in hand to inform you that these few lines come hoping that you are well," &c. Think carefully over what you have to say, reduce their comments to the lowest possible fraction, express that by the most convenient language, and it may be that your little gem will find a place in the coleeions of a great newspaper. 4. Again we repeat, don't ask us to return or preserve manuscripts. Those of length that forbid copying are too long for printing. The first and easiest sin of an amateur writer is to the prolix. We have a clear recollection of the time when we could not for our lives have put these few hints in less than three columns. Take the advice of an old stager. The editor who unfolds a manuscript of half-a. dozen pages inwardly groans at the waste of words, glances at the beginning and the ending, and rejects nine in ten of such papers mainly because he cannot or will not wade through them. Long letters and communications are very often published, but they are almost inevitably written by well-known friends in whom the editor has confidence. 5. We are quite willing to encourage those who have any good things to say. Therefore we ask them to heed this bit of advice, If they write, let the actual name and address accompany each item. A moment's thought ought to convince the most careless that it is not within reason that an editor should give the powerful endorsement, of his paper and himself to matter which the writer is airaid or ashamed to own. And once more, remember that we have not time to return or preserve manuscript — we cannot do it. Also, remember, that while you are crystallizing into words the grand ideas of which you are possessed, a thousand more may be doing the same thing ; that the thousand and one valuable contributions may r. ach us all in a heap : that, in spite of our enlargement, we cannot by any possibility print more than a tenth of the ten hundred ; that you have nine chances in ten of being one of the "rejected. But don't give it up so ; send us, very briefly, such importantideas as may occur to you, and we will do our utmost to give youi* voice in our columns. But don't forget to give your name (in confidence, of course) and don't expect us to preserve manuscripts. American Wheat. — The receipts of American wheat showed an immense declension last year, the late war having fairly exhausted the productive forces of the United States. Thus to November 30, 1865, the imports were only 1,011,531 cwt., as compared with 7,836,020 cwt., to the corresponding date of 1564-, and 8,338,330 cwt., to the corresponding date of J 863. Similarly the receipts of wheat meal aud flour from the United States d-clined to November 30 last year to 236,526 cwt , as compared with 1,737,417 cwt. in 1864, and 2,474,195 cwt. in 1864 (corresponding periods). In the ten years ending 1864, the receipts of American wheat and wheat-meal and flour were as follows : 1855. 1,933,750 cwt. ; 1856, 9,158,630 cwt. ; 1857, 4,651,018 owfc. ; 1858, 4,782,785 cwt. ; 1859 4430,504 cwt. ; 1860, 9,315,125 cwt. ,- 1861, 15,610,472 cwt. ; 1862, 21,765,057 cwt. ; 1863, 11,862,179 cwt. ; 18 64, 10,077,431 cwt. It will be seen that m 1862, the second year of the late w.ir, the exports of American wheat and flour to Great Britain attained unprecedented proportions and that evor since they have been declining. Southern Cross, 14th June. An anthology of selections from the American poets has been made by Mr Howe, under the title of " Crolden Leaves," and re-published in England with an Introductory Essay by Mr Alexander Smith. It is to be regretted that Mr Howe should have taken the title of a work of much higher pretensions published in England some two or three years ago, containing a complete anthology of English poetry, richly illustrated. It derogates something from the interest of Mr Howe's small volume that it should sail out of port under a borrowed flag. . The selection appears to be carefully made, and affords us a fair soupcon of every variety of flavor to be found in American verse. Under the title of the " Model Eeady Keckoner," we have a little book which will be a treasure to all persons engaged in small accounts, especially housekeepers, for it supplies every possible minute subdivision of a calculation from the sixteenth of a penny up to one pound. But its practical value does not vnd here. It has a large variety of tables, and much valuable information — such as commission tables, rates of discount, foreign gold and silver, commercial forms, wages tables, weights an measures, and many more. — Rome News. Extraordinary Case op Trance at GruiLDFOitD. — A very remarkable case of trance occurred at Gruildford a few days ago. An old lady residing at Woodbridge .Road had lately been in a very weak state of health, and was for a considerable time under the care of the doctor. The other day she became too ill to move about, and iv a short time, she declined gradually, till at length she sank down apparently lifeless, and even the attendant surgeon pronounced her dead. The old lady was then washed, laid out, and " waked," and during the space of fortyeight hours she was mourned by many friends as " gone for ever." At the end of that time they were thinking of carrying the apparently deceased lady to her grave, when suddenly she terrified all in the room by sitting straight up iv the bed, stariug about her with the greatest coolness ; and, finally, she stepped otic on the floor, and walked steadily through the room. When those assembled in the " chamber of death " had recovered from their terror they ascertained that she whom they mourned as dead was alive again, ancl ranch stronger than she was when she first sank into the-trance. The matter has caused, ranch gossip, and the oid lady is aow quite hrUe and strong,