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SEPTEMBER 2, 1906
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Uses of Clippings
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New York Sun.
Ninety newspapers a day is the task
of the girls who read for one of the
oldest clipping press bureaus in New
York and they read every item in
each paper, including the advertising.
Moreover, as they read they carry the
names, wants and wishes of 3,000 sub-
scribers in their minds and underscore
the salient word in every item which
should go to a customer.
This bureau has certain rules in hir-
ing its readers. It takes no elderly
person, no person who says she is fond
of reading or has made scrapbooks all
her life, and no school teacher. It
wants no literary tastes at its read-
ing desks, and not too much educa-
tion.
It wants persons who will read me-
chanically, with lightning speed and
with no interest in what they read
aside from the word they are looking
for. After trying all sorts of people
the type found most satisfactory is the
girl who has left school at 14 to go
to work in a factory or dry goods
store. In either of those places she
would get from $3 to $8 a week. In
the clipping bureau she may run her
wages up to $20 a week, as the star
reader of this bureau has done, and
average $12 or $15 a week as most of
them do.
All of them work by the piece, re-
ceiving so much for every clipping
marked. Sometimes they are a little
too mechanical, as when the patron
who subscribes for everything con-
cerning banks, but it is better to
have them that way than to have them
getting interested in what they read
and lingering over their work.
Eight hundred dailies a day are read
in this office, and in addition every
publication, weekly and monthly, in
the United States which has a circula-
tion of 5,000 making 5,000 in all. The
amount of surface information which
these girls get to carry around in their
heads concerning the matters in which
the 3,000 subscribers are interested is
remarkable. The strangest and most
unexpected scraps of knowledge will
crop up among curley headed fifteen-
year-olds whom one would not accuse
of an idea beyond chocoalte and peek-
aboo waists.
These girls read all sorts of queer
things. There is a badge and button
house capitalized at $1,000,000 which
has built its business in the last 12
years on the clippings furnished it by
these girls. It takes everything re-
lating to the organization of societies
or their parades, processions, meetings.
It gets 1000 items a day and its bill
is $400 a week. Its literature goes to
the address provided in these clip-
pings, and its publicity scheme has
proved good.
A house that makes church bells
takes everything relating to new
churches, appropriations for new bells,
etc. Another firm has for years taken
everything relating to scales. A com-
pany insuring against burglars, which
took everything relating to bank rob-
beries for twelve years, recently can-
celled its order, as it found that there
was no profit in this branch.
Society news in the papers is care-
fully scanned. Notices of engagements
are clipped for jewelers, florists, sta-
tioners, furniture dealers and hun-
dreds of other merchants. The most
profitable branch of the business is
the commercial, but the largest num-
ber of customers is made up of those
who subscribe for personal mention.
Personal vanity plays little part in
this however. It is dictated mostly by
commercial reasons.
On this list are playwrights, actors,
prize fighters, politicians, authors and
all sorts of men in public life. Some
of them are anxious for newspaper
mention and some are anxious for its
absence.
The income from this source is ex-
tremely irregular. It has happened
that a man would not have an item
for months and then suddenly in one
month his bill at the clipping bureau
[middle column]
has leaped from nothing to $1,000. This
sudden bull movement may be a
source of pleasure or quite the oppo-
site to the subject--one can never tell.
Sometimes authors subscribe for
clippings on subjects which they in-
tend to write upon. One author has
for two or three years been collecting
all clippings which describe the hero-
ism of girls, as shown in reports of
fires, accidents and the like. Then
there are the obviously crank collec-
tors.
One man has for years collected
everything printed on vegetarianism.
His bill this summer has been pretty
heavy. Another man pays for all
items relating to any rascality dis-
covered among spiritualists, or among
priests and ministers of the gospel.
Periodically he publishes a deadly
parallel in a spiritualist paper, ob-
viously to the discredit of the church
people, as there are many more of
them of his own cult.
Another man has collected for years
everything published on Lincoln, and
another everything published against
vaccination.
The American Medical Association
collects statistics relating to injury
and loss of life at Fourth of July cele-
brations. The principal of a school in
New England buys all items concern-
ing persons who have made donations
to schools or academies in New Eng-
land with the obvious purpose of af-
fording them an opportunity to ex-
tend their benevolence.
Interesting comparisons are supplied
by the clipping bureau regarding the
articles printed in the newspapers
about the deaths of prominent men.
No other man in American ever had
so much printed about his death in
the newspapers asn McKinley. Carl
Schurz has received thus far 12,000
obituary notices, more than any other
man since McCkinley. John Hay and
Joseph Jefferson had 10,000 each, and
Mark Hanna 8,000.
The most expensive thing to buy in
a clipping bureau is a "back search,"
a search for the notices of a past
event. For that a charge of 10 cents
for every paper read is made, whether
anything is found or not. The bill
may easily run into thousands of dol-
lars and it is never entirely satisfac-
tory, as many papers are inevitably
lost.
A month after the San Francisco
catastrophe the Southern Pacific road
decided that it wanted everything that
had been published on the subject,
and turned in an order to that effect
to a New York bureau. The bureau
has just forwarded a dry goods box
containing 15,000 clippings.
One of the most curious back
searches ever ordered was started by
Harmsworth, the London newspaper
owner. He began his career with a
little periodical called Answers. He
placed an order with a clipping
bureau for all original jokes and
funny stories published in American
papers. He was getting a pretty
heavy service, nturally, when one
day a letter arrived from him to the
following effect:
"Last December you furnished us
with the following joke:
"'Einstein's place has burned down.
"Too much inflammable material?
"No; too much insurance'"
"It is necessary to locate the origin
of this joke and mail us a copy of
the paper immediately."
The manager of the bureau cabled
to his London agend, asking the cause
of Mr. Harmsworth's sudden demand,
and received in response the cable-
gram:
"Local Einstein suing."
The manager wrote to every joke-
smith he could hear of in the United
States and posted the joke in every
press club, with an enquiry as to its
origin. After a while he got a letter
which read:
"I know -- cause why? I wrote it
myself. How much is it worth to
show you its original publication?"
For $3 a copy of the periodical
originally containing the much sought
joke was obtained and despatched to
the London publisher.
The first clipping bureau in the
world was started in Paris in 1879 by
a Frenchman named Cheri. There
are now forty clipping bureaus in the
United States of which ten are in New
York. There are clipping bureaus in
every language on earth sufficiently
advanced to have newspapers.
Gen. Joe Wheeler ordered a com-
plete newspaper historw of the Spanish
war in twelve great volumes. A New
York firm presented to every regiment
that went out of New York to that
war a scrapbook history of the action
[right column]
of the regiment and the books are
now preserved in the various armories.
Forty-two books of clippings were
made of McKinley's obituaries. One
man ordered twelve sets to present to
twelve different persons.
Relatives and friends of Henry B.
Hyde ordered ten sets of his obituary
notices, in twelve great volumes, in-
cluding items from insurance papers
in China, Japan, India and other
countries, some of which cost $50
a piece to obtain. Mrs. Collis P.
Huntington had under consideration
the making of a $10,000 scrapbook of
Mr. Huntington's obituary notices
when the clippings were destroyed by
fire.
The first scrapbook to attract public
attention was the enormous volume
ordered for presentation to Admiral
Dewey on his return from the Phillip-
ines. Including its table it cost $3,
100 and is the most valueable scrap-
book ever made. It is now in the
Smithsonian Institute.
Under the auspices of the German-
American committee on a memorial to
Carl Schurz a scrapbook is being pre-
pared of that statesman. This will
contain letters on the life and char-
acter of Mr. Schurz from almost every
prominent man of the day, and will
be a mine of autographs and personal
sentiments for future historians.
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Sunday, September 8, 1907
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Universal Soldering Fluid
A soldering fluid which will not rust
or corrode the soldered parts is made
by dissolving as much zinc in muri-
atic acid as the acid will take up and
then adding water, glycerine and al-
cohol. To one part glycerine add one
part alcohol and one part water; then
add two parts of acid with the zinc
dissolved. This fluid has been used
for all kinds of soldering, says the
Street Railway Journal and has been
found expecially desirable with greasy
or dirty connections as well as for
soldering iron. It is claimed that
the glycerine prevents all rust, which
plays havoc with many soldering
fluids which contain muriatic acid.
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To Cure Ingrowing Toe Nails
Take a piece of cotton batting or
some druggist cotton about half the
size of a pea, pull it out into an oblong
roll, saturate it with something healing,
like salve or vaseline; then raise the
point of the nail out of the flesh with
something slender like the point of a
penknife or the head of a darning
needle; it may hurt some at first but
persevere; then put the little roll of
cotton under the edge of the nail where
it is growing down; you will be sur-
prised how far back you can push it;
then go to bed and forget that sore toe.
In a few days or a week the cotton
can come out and you wil find your
toe now comfortable.
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HOW TO SEAL LETTERS
It is often very desirable to know how
to seal a letter so that it cannot be opened
without betraying the fact. Steam or hot
water will open envelopes closed with
mucilage and even a wafer. A hot iron or
a spirit lamp dissolves sealing-wax, an im-
pression in plaster having been taken of
the seal. By the combined use of wafer
and sealing-wax however, all attempts to
open the letter otherwise than by force
can be frustrated. All that is necessary is
to close the letter first with a small moist
wafer and to pierce the latter with a coarse
needle (the same applies to mucilage),
whereupon sealing-wax may be used in the
usual manner. The seal can neither be
opened by dry heat nor by moisture.--The
Chicago News.
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RIGHT PAGE
331
Meaning of Displacement
The meaning is the weight of the vessel
with Everything it contains, a
floating body displaces an amount
of water whose weight is Exactly
Equal to the weight of that body.
If we could weigh the water that
could fill the hole wheich a floating
vessel makes in the ocean, we could
find that it weight Exactly as the
vessel itself. Febry [February] 17, 1906
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Cement for Glue on to Glass
or to cement Wood to Glass
Take 2 ounces of a thick solution
of glue and mix with 1 ounce of
Linseed oil varnish, or 3/4 of an ounce
of Venice Turpentine. Boil together
stirring until well mixed. Clamp the
pieces together for 48 hours.
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FEBRUARY 23, 1907
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DECLARES BIGAMY IS LEGAL
Judge Says Man May Have Many
Wives Without Violating Law
CHICAGO--"Under our present mar-
riage laws a man may have a wife in
each of half a dozen states and yet violate
no law of the land and be absolutely im-
mune from punishment," says a Cleve-
land dispatch to the Chronicle.
This was the startling declaration made
by Judge Robert Tayler, of the federal
court, in an address before the Men's
League of Eells Memorial church on the
need of federal supervision of marriage
and divorce.
"A man may be a husband in one state
and not a husband in another. It de-
pends wholly on the laws of the individual
states," he said. "To show that whoat I
say is not theory let me cite the case of
a man who has had three wives and has
broken no laws. He was married first
in New York. Tiring of his wife, he
went into Pennsylvania, secured a divorce
under the laws of that state and married
again. New York however, does not
recognize the Pennsylvania divorce and
he was still hiusand [husband] of wife No. 1.
"Later he went to California, secured a
California divorce from wife No. 2, but
he was still no less the husband of the
women in New York and Pennsylvania
when he was in those states. He died
and three widows--not ex-wives, but
widows--took dower from his estate. So
long as he did not take one wife into the
state where another resided he had lived
within the law.
"It is a shame and a disgrace to our
society that this can be. The constitution
should be amended to permit congress
to legislate on marriage and divorce--to
fix some standard for all the states."
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