The Gnome and the Business Man

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 2, 24 March 1927, Page 3 (Supplement)

The Gnome and the Business Man

“’T'HERE’S nothing in the paper to-day.” The Business Man, post-prandially indolent., tossed his newspaper aside after he had glanced at the Stock Exchange notes and the result of the third race. His eyes had wandered over the orderly jumble of the sensations on the cable page, taking in the black type of die latest Shanghai protest, the happenings in the world centres and he had not been intrigued. Hence his condemnation. What is a twopenny paper, anyhow ? At that moment the Gnome Tnat Dwells in Printer's Ink rose from behind the armchair and began to sing in a funny little voice, which sounded like the faint song of the reporting packs on the news-trail, as .they thread the fogs of London, wipe their brows in Sydney’s heat, note the drone of the Baris Chamber, and track a murder in Quebec. In it was the ticking of a million stop-watches, timing the Amazon as she goes wallowing across the Channel, the speed of horses, hounds and men, in water, in the sky and on the firm earth. The Gnome, who was obviously annoyed about something, gained confidence. Into his song there crept the melodious whirr of linotypes, and the low grumble of turning machinery. Then 119 opened his mouth wide and putting it close up to the ear of the

Business Man, he pealed out the paean of the swift printing press, the triumph of a hundred toiling men. And these were 'die words thereof: "O’er Auckland our papers are shaken like snow. Our wires o’er the world like the thunderbolts go! The news of the last revolution in Sark, Or volcanic upheaval in Mount Edfen Park!.” The- Business Man had jumpo- fully three feet when the strength of the song burst upon him and he gazed in some amaze at the Gnome who was capering on the carpet as he sung the chorus with astonishing energy: “Volcanic upheaval in Mount Eden Park! The exigencies of a financier’s life had accustomed the Business Man to surprises. He quickly recovered from his shock. To give him time to think, he spe ■ in the silence ■which had fallen like a mist of evening over the moil of a day, saying, “Will you have a spot and a cigar, young fellow?” The glare in the eyes of the Gnome died down at this overture and he was appeased. Coiling himself in a comp- of the sofa, he bit off the end of his cheroot and wreathed himself in blue smoke so that the Man, peering through the fog, was not at all sure that there was not a voice without a body. “Once upon a time,” began the voice of the Gnome, who knew that a story was expected of him. "There was a man who washed the sweat of battle from him and said, ‘This was a great fight. The memory of men is short.. There shall be a carven tale, of it in the Cliff that is called Great.’ And this was the be ginning of records. The sounds that men spoke were put down in signs. There is a pageant of the written word beginning from Babvlon and Cathay. The interest felt in neighbours and foreigners became, with the passage of centuries, so acute that men wished for a daily record of the tales of the world. And this was the beginning of newspapers. When the pakeha came to live with the Maori in the fern gullies of the strip of land between the Waitemata and tile Manukau, he waited long months for letters and for the news of his land. Then, as his •lumbers increased, he thought that he would print his own records.

“Narrow limits hedged the papers of those days. The cables which lie like snakes in the sea-slime and coil round the world were unlaid, the telegraph wires were not bunched overhead and in the ground, the tinkle of telephones was a sound unheard, and the marvels of wireless was undreamt of. Yet the paper you have tossed aside calls on each of these links to give it the stories of the ways of men and they answer within seconds and minutes.” The Business Man picked up his paper and looked at it curiously. Oil the front page he saw the Stop Press, and the results of the races of horses In Wliangarei and Invercargill. Strangely, he felt tlie excitement of the crowds as the fields bunched to enter the straight. He thought he saw the sporting reporters dashing to telephones and wireless sets, the printing presses held in leash while the few words were inserted to make them “Last Race Editions,” the crying of th- s‘--eet-sellers. With interest, he turned the leaves, sensing the multitude of the needs of the city, calling to him in their ranks on the advertisement pages. These were the voices of the sellers and the buyers, the searchers. for lost friends, the mourners in public, the showmen. Even the “frills, fads and foibles”* df the women’s pages made him think with a degree of sorrow of the inventors of fashions in Paris, New York and London, of the mannequin parades and of the butterfly tendencies of his womanfolk. “Turn to the middle pages,” said the Gnome with a smile of satisfaction of finding a sympathetic subject. “Can you see the debaters iu the French Chamber, in frock-coated solemnity, considering the possibility of the next' war, or the Assembly of New South ' Wales-frantically waging its ever-present one? There is still the sound of Availing from Cwm and of the plaudits greeting Jack Sharkey, of Boston, as his seconds swathe him in a dressing gown and loosen his gloves. In English mud, footballers are trying the New Zealand ‘out-of-touch’ rule of Rugby and a New York jury is trying an ex-Attorney General for graft, while experts are eulogising the engineer who sped to his death in a monster motorcar. Shanghai, Shanghai! can you not see the giant Chinaman raising his head after centuries of sleep, and looking toward the future , instead of the past. “In your oavu country the reporters are watching every movement of the Duke and Duchess of York. They sit along the sides of court-houses waiting for “human interest," Avrite the affairs of bankrupts, take copious notes of the spoutings of councils. They lurk by the AvaterAvays, to inveigle the stories from the men of the sea, and rush to the scenes of fires and accidents. They are all trying to make you interested, they are working for you. There are specialists to tell you about your hobby, and your sport. fl’his neAvspaper is not a dead thing; its pulse is the heart beat of the world. Its tenacles search out the icefloes and the desert-Avays, pasture lands, and the streets of cities.” Here the Gnome stopped for Avant of breath. “Well, I guess I had better be going,” he said from behind his smoke screen, “but I haven’t told you half enough about the neAvspaper. Try to remember that a hundred or tAvo of men who work on the raw news until it is the finished newsprint, the sub-editors, compositors, printers, stereotype experts, machinists, press-mechanics, and the runners.” There Avas a pause and the voice said. “That song I sang, it Avas written in rather a different form by Mr. Chesterton. ...... “O’er Auckland our papers are shaken like sno-ooAV The tune trailed off and the Business Man

became aAvare that Gnome was not. He just saved the couch from being ignited by the butt of the cigar. ,4 “Well I’LL he blowed,” said the Business Rian. I. D. COSTER.