Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1891 — SMALLEST NEWSPAPER OFFICE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SMALLEST NEWSPAPER OFFICE.

Perhaps the smallest newspaper office in the world, says a writer in the New York World, is that of the New Era, situated up in Minnesota. The house is in the midst of woods. Birds come in springtime and build nests about it, and their matins are

sung to the editor’s corps as they set up the loud-sounding circus “ad” and the list of delinquent taxpayers, while he dashes off a stirring editorial on the Farmers’Alliance. All day long, as the devil rests himself about the office, lie can hear the robins calling to each other, the wild dove’s plaintive cooing and the wren’s fitful complaining. At regular intervals come the “Bob White! Bob White!” of the quail in the fields afar off, and the lowing of cows over by the river, where the devil wishes he were in swimming. Little children on the way to school peep in and see the great Washington hand-press and the office towel, and gaze in awe at the editor, whose genial face is hidden behind one of his exchanges. He is business manager, publisher, editor-in-chief, managing and news editor, city editor, sporting and dramatic editor, religions and financial editor, reporter and collector rolled into one alert and able body, and, to judge from his photograph, he is getting fat at it, too. Out there in the woods, in this little white house, running a paper means just as much as it does in the metropolis. Step indoors and look around. The managing editor’s department is divided off from the business office by an imaginary line running due north. Here Mr. Deacon meets the advance agent arid the drummer for the paper and ink house, and then stepping over to the editorial rooms he confers with the local candidate and the Secretary of the State Fair, and then he retires to his sanctum, and, baring his arms to the elbows, molds public opinion into an aesthetic thingof beauty and a joy forever. The woods are convenient! too. Mr. Deacon from the front window of the cashier’s room can see “Fiat Justitia,” “Old Sfibscriber,” “Pro Bono Publico” and “Constaut Header” approaching, and takmg his gun he goes out of the rear door of the mailing department and has a few- hours hunting ground-hog, and varies the sport by calling upon some tardy subscribers and touching them for their last three years’ subscriptions, perhaps gathering some important news items at the same time, i

THE SMALLEST NEWSPAPER OFFICE.