The floor was efficient, for it was covered with rubber matting that deadened alike the quick footstep of Dana and the thundering stride of pugilistic champions who came in to see the sporting editor. But the city room’s only ornaments were men and their genius. Here wrote Ralph and Chamberlin, Spears and Irwin, and all the rest of the fine reporters of the old building’s years. Near the windows of this shabby room were the desks of the men who planned news-hunts, chose the hunters, and mounted their trophies. Six desks handled all the news-matter in the old city room of the _Sun_. The managing editor sat at a roll-top in the northwest corner, near a door that led to Mr. Dana’s room. A little distance to the east was the night editor’s desk. At the large flat-top desk near the managing editor three men sat--the cable editor, who handled all foreign news; the “Albany man,” who edited articles from the State and national capitals and all of New York State; and the telegraph editor, who took care of all other wire matter. [Illustration: CHESTER SANDERS LORD ] In the southwest corner of the room was a double desk at which the city editor sat from 10 A.M. until 5 P.M., when the night city editor came in. Next to the city editor’s desk was the roll-top of the assistant city editor, also used by the assistant night city editor. Beyond that was the desk of the suburban or “Jersey” editor. Nearest the door, so that the noise of ten-thousand-dollar challenges to twenty-round combat would not disturb the whole room, was the desk of the sporting editor. In the fifty years that have passed since Dana bought the _Sun_, the changes in the heads of the news departments have been comparatively few. True, the news office has not been as fortunate as the editorial rooms, where only three men, Charles A. Dana, Paul Dana, and Edward P. Mitchell, have been actual editors-in-chief; but the list of managing editors and night city editors is not long. Before the day of Chester S. Lord, the managing editors were, in order: Isaac W. England, Amos J. Cummings, William Young, and Ballard Smith. Since Lord’s retirement the managing editors have been James Luby, William Harris, and Keats Speed. The city editors have been John Williams, Larry Kane, W. M. Rosebault, William Young, John B. Bogart (1873–1890), Daniel F. Kellogg (1890–1902), George B. Mallon (1902–1914), and Kenneth Lord, the present city editor, a son of Chester S. Lord.