The Unsung Toll of the 19th-Century Newsroom

One of the great trials of this newspaper profession is the fact that they are compelled to see more of the shame of the world than any other profession. Through every newspaper office, day by day, go the weaknesses of the world, the vanities that want to be puffed, the revenges that want to be wreaked, all the dull speakers who want to be thought eloquent. From the editorial and reportorial rooms, all the follies and shams of the world are seen day by day, and the temptation is to believe neither in God, man, nor woman. It is no surprise to me that in your profession there are some skeptical men. I only wonder that you believe anything. Another great trial of the newspaper profession is inadequate compensation. Since the days of Hazlitt, Sheridan and John Milton, on down to the present time, literary toil is a great struggle for bread. But God knows there are no harder worked men in all the earth than the newspaper people of this country. They must go through killing night work. They must go into heated assemblies and into unventilated audience rooms hot enough to take the life out of them. They must visit courtrooms which are almost always disgusting with rum and tobacco. They must expose themselves at the fire. They must write in fetid alley-ways. Added to all that, they must have hasty mastication and irregular habits. To bear up under this tremendous nervous strain, they are tempted to artificial stimulus, and how many thousands have gone down under that pressure, God only knows. They must have something to counteract the wet, and they must have something to keep out the chill, and after a scant night's sleep, they must have something to revive them for the morning work.