THE EDITOR AND THE COBBLER.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4658, 8 December 1883, Page 1

THE EDITOR AND THE COBBLER.

One day an editor, hard at work trying to devise a plan to make his delinquent subscribers pay their dues, was called upon by a shoemaker, who dropped in to give the editor some hints on running a newspaper. The editor, overjoyed at the opportunity, gave the man his best caneseat chair, honored him with a cigar, and listened attentively to what he had to say. Quoth the shoemaker, as he lit the weed:

" Your paper needs a hundred improved features. You do not grasp the topics of the day by the right handle ; you don't set the locals in the right type; your telegraph news is too thin ; even the paper itself is poorly manufactured—not thick enough, and is too chalky white; you don't run enough ' matter,'and what you do run ain't of the right sort; your idea on Disestablishment is wrong, and in regard to • Wee Colin' you stand bad. I tell you these things because I want to see you succeed. I tell you as a friend. I don't take your paper myself, hut I see it once in a while; and, as a paper is a public affair, I suppose I have as good a right to criticise it as anybody. If a man wants to give me advice, I let him; I'm glad to have him, in fact."

" TbatV ekactly it," said the editor kindly. " I always had a dim idea of my shortcomings, but never had them so clearly and convincingly set forth as by you. It is impossible to express my gratitude for the trouble you have taken, not only to find out these facts, but to point them out also. Some people know* ing all these things perhaps, nearly at well as you do, are really mean enough to keep them to themselres. Your suggestions come in a most appropriate time. I hare wanted some "one to lean on, as it were, for some weeks. Keep your eye on the paper, and when you see a weak spot come up." ■■_■•■ The shoemaker left, happy to know that his suggestions had been received with such a Christian spirit.

Next day, just as the cobbler was finishing a boot, the editor came in, and, picking up the mate, remarked,—" I want to tell you how that boot strikes me. In the first place, the leather is poor ; the stitches in the sole are wide apart, and the uppers too near the edge; those uppers will go to pieces in two weeks. It's all wrong, my friend, putting poor leather in the heels, and smoolhing.it over with grease and lamp-black. Everybody complains of your boots; they don fc last, the legs are too short, the toes too narrow, the instep too high. How you can have the ' gall' to charge twenty-two shillings for such boots beats me. Now I tell you this because I like to see you succeed. Of course I don't know any more about shoemaking than you do about a newspaper, but still I take an interest in you, because you are so well disposed towards me. In fact I—"

. Here the exasperated cobbler grabbed ft lapstone, and the editor gained the street, followed by old knives, hammers, and awls, sent after him by the wrathful cobbler, who regained his seat and swore by the nine gods that no impertinent lopeared idiot should ever come around trying to teach him his trade. Moral: Keep your advice to yourself.