Joseph Pulitzer's Editorials. Afloat or ashore, Mr. Pulitzer is surrounded by a troop of readers and secretaries, and when the impulse to do a thing comes upon him, his power of endurance breaks the youngest and the strongest of them. Take him at sea, where most of his time has been spent of late. It is an ordinary occurrence for him to rout out his personal staff at two or three o'clock in the morning to aid him in the preparation of an article. To think with him is to act. Let it be some political fight or principle to which he has dedicated the World, and though he may be on the other side of the earth, he is able to visualize it and live with the paper and those in charge of it through every step of success or defeat.

He does not compose with facility; some of those whole-page editorials in the World, bearing the signature "Joseph Pulitzer," which became so familiar during the Roosevelt administration and in the forming of the last Bryan campaign, represented weeks and weeks of unrelenting labor. They meant the driving to near distraction of those upon whom he is compelled to depend to put his thoughts on paper; they meant a crying for "facts, facts," and "more facts" which it was believed would never cease; they meant the working-over of draft after draft of the editorial in preparation; they meant countless finished articles thrown away and a beginning all over again until the ear of the blind man was satisfied.-W. B. Meloney, in the American Magazine.

a queer mixture of abbreviated longhand, a primitive shorthand, and a very puzzling cipher. The owner of the manuscript volumes, Russel Colman, permitted Mr. Curnock to photograph the pages, and with some thousands of fac-similes before him, he began the task of reading the diaries. He has spent four years on the task.

Mr. Curnock says that when he first looked at Wesley's notes he had not the faintest idea what they could mean. "Part was in shorthand, and I knew no shorthand. Part was in longhand, but abbreviated to one or two letters for a whole word. Part was in a cipher, to which I had no clue.

"I had to find out what system of shorthand Wesley used, and learn it. That was comparatively easy, but I had also to read it as written by him.

"To make out his longhand abbreviations was difficult, and I found that words, when made out, did not always bear their usual meanings. For instance, he wrote 'st,' and I soon determined that it meant sat.' But by 'st' Wesley really meant a serious conversation,' as distinguished from a casual talk, which he represented by 't.'

'When nearly every word is similarly abbreviated, it is not easy to read another man's notes.

"As for the cipher, Edgar Allan Poe's cipher in The Gold Bug' is simplicity itself compared with it, and I had no clue to it. I studied most of the recorded ciphers since the sixteenth century, at the British Museum and elsewhere, and I have made various inquiries, but I found nothing to correspond with Wesley's.

“The ordinary method of finding the most frequently-recurring signs, in Poe's manner, was not enough, for Wesley's cipher was partly numerical and partly indescribable in type. It was inconceivably difficult to work it out, for the same sign does not always mean the same thing.

"It was only by going over the notes time after time and making repeated comparisons that I was able, after months of work, to puzzle out the meaning of the various signs."

Mr. Curnock will give some account of

this work in the introduction to the first volume, which will be published next month. In one instance an explanation of one of the signs came into his mind when he was either dreaming or only half awake. He sprang up, went to his notebooks, and found that he had discovered the meaning of one of the most puzzling signs in the cipher.

Editorial Liberties with Copy. We are constantly being told by public speakers and the press that we are not a military people, but the longer we live the more people we meet whose knowledge of military matters is sufficient to set at naught that of the professionals. When doctors of divinity, law, or medicine write for publication, it is a rare thing for editor, compositor, or proofreader to set up his views in place of those of the author, especially over or under that author's name. Architects, electricians, and

engineers are also secure. Even navy writers seldom find their pages altered by the publisher.

But not so the soldier. Such has been the spread of information in the military art, such is the superiority of the editorial or compositorial mind that editors and typesetters do not scruple to alter the words of the military author, really believing him wrong.

Without so much as a “by your leave" I have been made responsible for singular statements which prove, on comparison with the carbon copy it has long years been my rule to retain, to be not of my making, but the result of this growth of military lore among the laity.

For instance : The proof sheets of a magazine article came to me with the bald statement that Sheridan had said thus and so on a certain occasion when Sheridan could not possibly have been there. The carbon revealed a totally different name. The editor explained that it was so characteristic of Sheridan that he wrote Sheridan in place of the name in the copy. Speaking of Sheridan, one of the best-edited journals in America made me tell of this general doing a certain thing at Cedar Creek, when I had written Five Forks, and the carbon proved it. Explanation: The editor was so

sure I meant Cedar Creek that he never thought it necessary to ask.

Still another : An old and famous publishing house sent me proof sheets of a description of a certain cavalry affair in which the general was met by a mounted escort and saluted with "port arms." What in the name of all creation could I have been thinking of when I made a troop of horse execute port arms in saddle? The carbon was dragged to light - so was the original rough draft, and there in both it read "carbines advanced," but some compositor knew better than the old regular, and with serene confidence changed things accordingly. Such was their confidence in their fellowworker's knowledge of military affairs that editor and proof-reader both let it go.

A prominent Eastern journal, reviewing a Civil War story of mine, declared the description of the cavalry fight on the right flank at Gettysburg - the brilliant affair between Gregg's division, plus Custer's brigade, and Stuart's division - to be a picture of a "purely mythical combat." It took the united and written testimony of Merritt, Chester, Pennington, and half a score of surviving participants - officers of rank and distinction-to wrest an acknowledgment of error from the editor, who, after the fashion of the journalist, got even with the author by dismissing him as unworthy of consideration because "he was only a cadet at West Point at the time, and therefore could know nothing about it." The author retaliated with the story of Mrs. Kelly's apology.

Then, one of the foremost editors in America, who, better than the author, knew what to name an article on a day in camp at West Point, scratched the title given it by the graduate and substituted what I was about to call his own, whereas it was n't his own at all. It was the title given a quarter of a century earlier by General George C. Strong to a most entertaining story of cadet life in the fifties. Of course, it was not long before the lamented general's son and heir wrote a letter of remonstrance, and, of course, he blamed the author, who was both aggrieved and innocent, and not the editor,

who alone was at fault. Nor was he quite satisfied with the explanation, for long afterward he again wrote to the victimized author, claiming that something in the way of reparation was due, and was again referred to the man behind the blunder - the editor. General Charles King, in Uncle Sam's Magazine.

LITERARY ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS.

[For the convenience of readers THE WRITER will send a copy of any magazine mentioned in the following reference list on receipt of the amount given in parenthesis following the name the amount being in each case the price of the periodical with three cents postage added. Unless a price is given, the periodical must be ordered from the publication office. Readers who send to the publishers of the periodicals indexed for copies containing the articles mentioned in the list will confer a favor if they will mention THE WRITER when they write. ]

Brander

Study,

THE DRAMATIST AND THE THEATRE. Matthews. Century (38 c.) for November. HARPER'S MAGAZINE, 1850-1909. Editor's Harper's Magazine (38 c.) for November. ENGLISH AND AMERICAN FICTION. Atlantic (35 c.) for November.

EMERSON. W. C. Brownell. Scribner's (28 c.) for November.

SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE REMEDY. S. W. Pennypacker. North American Review (38 c.) for November.

GATEWAYS OF LITERATURE. Brander Matthews. North American Review ( 38 c.) for November.

SAN FRANCISCO'S POET-MAYOR (Edward Robeson Taylor). With portrait. Mabel Craft Deering. Putnam's Magazine ( 28 c.) for November.

GREAT PUBLISHING HOUSES. The Great Publishing Houses of France. Alvan F. Sanborn. Bookman (28 c.) for November.

IMITATION AND SUGGESTION IN THE DRAMA. Clayton Hamilton. Forum for November.

THE POPULAR ELEMENT IN LITERATURE. Hooker. Forum for November.

Brian

Frank

NEW YORK JOURNALISM: A SNAPSHOT. Fox. National Review (78 c.) for October. CLYDE FITCH AS HE WAS. Archie Bell. Theatre for November.

ROBERT BURNS, POET OF HUMANITY. Illustrated. Henry Mann. Columbian Magazine (18 c.) for November.

THE AUTHOR OF "ANNE OF AVONLEA" (L. M. Montgomery). With portrait. Zion's Herald (8 c.) for October 6. George

BANCROFT .GRIFFITH. With portrait. Zion's Herald (8 c. ). for October 20. LITERARY PORTRAITS AND MEMORIES (William Winter's "Old Friends "). Outlook (8 c.) for October 2.

MRS. HUMPHRY WARD'S REAL PEOPLE. Illustrated. Charles S. Olcott. Outlook (18 c.) for October 23. Two FAMOUS BALLADS. Barbara Allen's Cruelty, Robin Hood and Allen-a-Dale. Introduction by Hamilton Wright Mabie. Outlook (18 c.) for October 23.

A HITHERTO UNKNOWN STATUETTE OF CHARLES LAMB. Illustrated. E. V. Lucas. Outlook (8 c.) for October 30.

"THE HUMAN WAY" AND ITS AUTHOR (Louise Collier Wilcox). With portrait. Harper's Weekly (13 c.) for October 30.

Margaret Sangster's autobiography is published by the Fleming H. Revell Company, under the title, "From My Youth Up."

John Bigelow, now in his ninety-second year, is publishing his autobiography, under the title of Retrospections of an Active Life."

Mitchell Kennerley publishes "The Man Shakespeare," by Frank Harris. The book is published before its appearance in England, thus reversing the usual fate of an English book. As a matter of fact, this book would probably never have been published but for the American publisher, who persuaded Mr. Harris to give him the manuscript after English publishers had given up the attempt in despair. It is twelve years since Mr. Harris started this book, and for several years it has been complete except for the author's final corrections.

John W. Luce & Co. will publish shortly Milton Bronner's critical study of Maurice Hewlett.

The Putnams will shortly publish “Mr. Pope His Life and Times," in two volumes, by George Paston.

Henry Holt & Co. announce Masters of the English Novel," by Richard Burton, an appreciation and criticism of the great novelists of the nineteenth century.

"Essays on Modern Novelists," by Professor William Lyon Phelps of Yale, to be published in November, will discuss Mrs. Ward, William De Morgan, Mark Twain, Hardy, Locke, and Conrad.

Lepelletier's "Life of Paul Verlaine" is published in this country by Duffield & Co.

John Albert Macy, whose "Child's Guide to Reading" is announced, was for several years associate editor of the Youth's Companion, a post he resigned to obtain more time for creative work.

Miss Laura Stedman, the granddaughter of Edmund Clarence Stedman, has now in preparation an official "Life and Letters of E. C. Stedman."

The first two volumes of Emerson's "Journals," just published, cover the years 1820-'29. Their author began these records as a boy, and continued to set down his daily addition until the task was no longer within his powers. The intimate episodes of his life were confided to those journals, as well as remarks on the men and women he knew.

John Pierpont Morgan has paid $4,000 for three manuscript works of the late George Meredith. They are "Diana of the Crossways," "Lord Ormont and His Aminta," and "The Amazing Marriage." The manuscripts were given by Mr. Meredith to an old servant, who was amazed to discover their value. They were in bad condition, disarranged and timeworn, but after much labor they were collated and found to be nearly perfect, except "The Amazing Marriage," of which eight chapters are missing.

The

A prize of $100 is offered for the best essay on international peace by an undergraduate of any American college or university. Essays must not exceed 5,000 words, and 3,000 words will be preferred. name of the writer must not appear on the essay, which should be accompanied by a letter giving the writer's name, class, college and home addresses, and sent to H. C. Phillips, secretary Lake Mohonk Conference, Mohonk Lake, N. Y., to reach him not later than March 15, 1910.

The National Municipal League has established an annual prize of $100, to be called the William H. Baidwin prize, to be given to the author of the best essay on a subject connected with municipal government. For 1909-'10 the competition will be limited to undergraduate students in any college of the United States offering distinct instruction in municipal government, and the subject will be: "City Government by Commission." Professor William Bennett Munro of Harvard will give full information to inquirers.

The Minneapolis Tribune has offered $100 for the best new song for the University of Minnesota.