A Frenchman in America: Recollections of Men and ThingsO'Rell, Max
General
A Frenchman in America: Recollections of Men and Things
O'Rell, Max
United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918
Here are a few from the Cincinnati _Enquirer_, which tell different
stories:
1. The young MADAME J. C. ANTONIA, just arrived from Europe, will
remain a short time; tells past, present, and future; tells by the
letters in hand who the future husband or wife will be; brings back
the husband or lover in so many days, and guarantees to settle family
troubles; can give good luck and success; ladies call at once; also
cures corns and bunions. Hours 10 A. M. and 9 P. M.
"Also cures corns and bunions" is a poem!
2. The acquaintance desired of lady passing along Twelfth Street at
three o'clock Sunday afternoon, by blond gent standing at corner.
Address LOU K., 48, _Enquirer_ Office.
3. Will the three ladies that got on the electric car at the Zoo
Sunday afternoon favor three gents that got off at Court and Walnut
Streets with their address? Address ELECTRIC CAR, _Enquirer_ Office.
4. Will two ladies on Clark Street car, that noticed two gents in
front of Grand Opera House about seven last evening, please address
JANDS, _Enquirer_ Office.
* * * * *
A short time ago a man named Smith was bitten by a rattlesnake and
treated with whisky at a New York hospital. An English paper would have
just mentioned the fact, and have the paragraph headed: "A Remarkable
Cure"; or, "A Man Cured of a Rattlesnake Bite by Whisky"; but a kind
correspondent sends me the headings of this bit of intelligence in five
New York papers. They are as follows:
1. "Smith Is All Right!"
2. "Whisky Does It!"
3. "The Snake Routed at all Points!"
4. "The Reptile is Nowhere!"
5. "Drunk for Three Days and Cured."
Let a batch of officials be dismissed. Do not suppose that an American
editor will accept the news with such a heading as "Dismissal of
Officials." The reporter will have to bring some label that will fetch
the attention. "Massacre at the Custom House," or, "So Many Heads in the
Basket," will do. Now, I maintain that it requires a wonderful
imagination--something little short of genius, to be able, day after
day, to hit on a hundred of such headings. But the American journalist
does it.
[Illustration: SMITH CURED OF RATTLESNAKE BITE.]
An American paper is a collection of short stories. The Sunday edition
of the New York _World_, the New York _Herald_, the Boston _Herald_, the
Boston _Globe_, the Chicago _Tribune_, the Chicago _Herald_, and many
others, is something like ten volumes of miscellaneous literature, and I
do not know of any achievement to be compared to it.
I cannot do better than compare an American paper to a large store,
where the goods, the articles, are labeled so as to immediately strike
the customer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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