Let me tell you of the happy days (happily past) when I was editor-in-chief and proprietor of “The Murderers’ Home Journal,” sometimes lovingly referred to as “The Dead House Squealer.” The public will never turn over a file of its pages, but they may read here some extracts from its columns. As to the paper itself, it was as artistic as black and blue pencils could make it. We all contributed what and when we pleased. It appeared when convenient, and as nothing was charged for advertisements or subscriptions, no wonder it prospered. Every one in our community read it and read no other. It contained real poetry, jokes—what jokes!—essays on our neighbors’ behavior, and news—_local_ news, together with advertisements which simply compelled attention. The letters therein to the editor-in-chief left nothing to the imagination. And the leaders—ah, I wrote them! How proudly I referred to myself as “we”! Sometimes I used a pencil almost as blue as myself, never a pen—a vein can be opened with a pen. Every proprietor admires and praises his own publication, and I shall proceed to “Munsey” mine. I can say without egotism, since it is but imperfectly expressed justice, that there has never been another newspaper “approaching” it. “Old Sol” does not affect the Death-Chamber; no sun shone on it, so of course we could not “see it in the ‘Sun’”; but we were as up to date in our own affairs as the “Times” permitted, as sensational in local matters as all the “yellows” combined; nothing in the “World” got ahead of our “Journal” in this respect. Having no “News” we invented it, just as do the newspapers for which you pay, but we never had to take anything back. The “Tribune” from which it issued was my cage, and I, the editor-in-chief, remained as deaf as a “Post” to all abuse (I am used to it). As for a “Press,” we had none. It was printed by my tired fingers. The illustrations were alluring, and though we received neither “Telegram” nor “Mail and Express,” yet we never forgot a text to “Herald” our first column. It was always the same one—“Damn the Jury.” Its politics were “sound.” (All politics are that.) We opposed the government with a capital O, and that institution responded with the only practical solution for restraining the license of modern journalism—it killed the editors. I can truthfully say that it cost me a great deal of money to escape even as far as the “Tombs.” Many of my unfortunate associates have also “passed away” to similar places, and I wish some reporters I know of could be assigned to interview them.