RULES FOR NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENTS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 170, 11 May 1871, Page 6

RULES FOR NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENTS.

A Philanthropic correspondent, who seems to have a proper feeling for the loss compositors are subjected to through bad " copy," sends us the following extract from the " Queenslander " : — 1. "Write on one side only of your letter or note paper. 2. As you desire the blessings, and not the anathemas, of " Typo," write, at a1!a 1 ! times, legibly. The manuscript of a man stamps him in the estimation of a compositor. If the " copy " is good, Typo says (gleefully) : " Ah, this was written by a white man ! " If bad, he holds it disgustfully to his next mate, with — " You would not lend this fellow five shillings, would you? " "No ! (is the unhesitating response) he'll be hanged yet!" Bad copy involves the loss, to a compositor, of many shillings — even pounds — during the year, which, otherwise, would be invested in boots, frocks, and lollies for his little ones : hence such copy is a dead loss to the community at large. 3. Folio each slip of your copy. 4. Always indent every fresh paragraph ; and never (if you can avoid it) carry one or two lines over to the next slip. 5. In wrijing the words of foreign language, let every letter be well formed and legible. Compositors are not supposed to be all Porsons or Elihu Burritts. 6. In signing your name at the end of a letter ?et it be plain as copperplate. Hieroglyphical signatures are odious ; and betoken, in those who indulge in them, mental weakness, nonrespectability, and loose morals — (sic Typo). 7. Never put the inital "I " for "J," in a signature. It is impossible for a printer to tell whether a man's name is Isaac or Jarob, [This is a cotnmm, but most pernicious custom.] 8. Never write with faint ink. Let your words stand forth bright and clear as your actions. 9. Adhere fnithfullv to the foregoing rules. Then. — That every coinmumVation of yours may be "accepted " by the urbane editor (who himself delights in good, conscientiously written manuscript) is the sincere prayer of one who wishes you well — both in this world and the next. [Qy. — "Will not the anathemas, uttered during the silent watches of the nigh>, over " bad copy," be entered — not to the account of the poor, perplexed defrauded " com p," but against those who, by artless hieroglyphics, invoke those ourses from his otherwise serene soul ? Reflect, and, if guilty, reform.] __________^___