Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1882 — The Editor and the Shoemaker. [ARTICLE]

The Editor and the Shoemaker.

Carson (Nev.) Appeal. - ” v ’ > ;' One day an editor, hard at trotk trying to devise a plan to make delinquent subscribers pay their dues, was (sailed upon by a shoemaker, who dropped, to to give the editor some valuable hints on running, a newspaper. The editor*, oveijoyed at the opportunity, gave the man his bast cane-bottom onahr, hand- ; ed him a iresh cigar and listened, attentively. Quoth the shoemMSralhe lit the weed:. “Your paper needs a hundred improved features. Yop,don’t grasp the topios of the day by the right handle; you don’t set the locals in the right kind of type; your telegraph news 1b too thin; even the paper Itself is poorly manufactured, not thick, enough and too chalky a white. You don’t run enough matter, and what you do run ain’t of the right sort. Your ideas about protective tAriff internally foolish and your stand on the COnkling matter!was bad. bad. I tell you as a friend I dont take yoHr paper myeeir, but I see it once in a while, as a paper is a public affair, I suppose I have as good a right to criticise as any body. If a man want’s to give ms advice I let him; I am glad to have him, in fact” "That’s exactly it,” said the edltM, kindly; “I always had a dim idea of my shortcomings, but never had them so clearly and oouninclngly set forth as by you. It is impossible to expreSf my gratitude for the trouble you' have taken not only to find out these facts, but to point them out also. Borne people knowing all these things, perhaps nearly as well as you, are mean enough to keep them to themselves. Your suggestions (come in'a most appropriate time; I have wanted somebody to lean ou, a» it were, for some weeks. Keep your eye on the paper, aud when you see a weak spot, come up.” The Bhoemaker left, happy to koOW that his suggestions had been received with a Christian spirit. Next day, Just as he was finishing a boot, the editor came in, and, picking up tne mate remarked: “I want to tell how that boot strikes me. In the first place the leather is poor; the stitches in the sole are wide apart and in the uppers too near the edge. Those uppers will go,to pieces In two Weeks. It's all wrong, my ffiehef putting poor leather in the heals and smoothing it over with grease and lamp-black. Everybody complains qf your boots; they don’t last; the legs are too short, the toes are too narrow*, and the instep tpo high. How caa you have the gall tocharge twelve dotlors for sueh boots beats ms. Now I tell you this at a friend, because I like to see you succeed. Of course, I don’t know any more about shoemaking thanyou do ajoouta newspaper.bUt stifl I take an Interest In you because you are so well-disposed to me. In foot ” Here the exasperated cobbler grabbed a lapstone, and the editor gained the street, followed by old knives, placers, hammers, and awls, sent after him by the wrathful oobbler, ,wbo, on regaining bis seat, swore by the niae gods that no impertinent, lopear idiot should ever come round trying to teach him his trade.