A Quarter
Of A Century Ago A Sub-Editor, Opening His Mail, Could Identify The
Melbourne Argus, The Sydney Morning Herald, Or The Cape Times As
Far As He Could See Them.
Even unheaded clippings from them declared
their origin as a piece of hide betrays the beast that wore it.
But he
noticed then that Canadian journals left neither spoor nor scent - might
have blown in from anywhere between thirty degrees of latitude - and had
to be carefully identified by hand. To-day, the spacing, the headlines,
the advertising of Canadian papers, the chessboard-like look of the open
page which should be a daily beautiful study in black and white, the
brittle pulp-paper, the machine-set type, are all as standardised as the
railway cars of the Continent. Indeed, looking through a mass of
Canadian journals is like trying to find one's own sleeper in a corridor
train. Newspaper offices are among the most conservative organisations
in the world; but surely after twenty-five years some changes might be
permitted to creep in; some original convention of expression or
assembly might be developed.
I drew up to this idea cautiously among a knot of fellow-craftsmen. 'You
mean,' said one straight-eyed youth, 'that we are a back-number copying
back-numbers?'
It was precisely what I did mean, so I made haste to deny it. 'We know
that,' he said cheerfully. 'Remember we haven't the sea all round
us - and the postal rates to England have only just been lowered.
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