e one of the most comprehensive newspaper libraries in the country, I
cannot forbear printing one of Field's choice bits at the expense of
the occupants of this floor of the Daily News office. It has no title,
but is supposed to be a soliloquy of Mr. Stone's:

_I wish my men were more like Plumbe
And not so much like me--
I hate to see the paper hum
When it should stupid be.
For when a lot of wit and rhyme
Appears upon our pages,
I know too well my men in time
Will ask a raise in wages.

I love to sit around and chin
With folk of doubtful fame,
But oh, it seems a dreadful sin
When others do the same;
For others gad to get the news
To use in their profession,
But anything I get I use
For purpose of suppression._

Field's poetical license here does injustice to Mr. Stone, whose
inquisitions generally concerned matters of public or political concern
and whose practice of the editorial art of suppression was never
exercised with any other motive than the public good or the sound
discretion of the editor, who knew that the libel suits most to be
feared were those where the truth about some scalawag was printed
without having the affidavits in the vault and a double hitch on the
witnesses.

Up another long, narrow, dark stairway was the office of Mr.
Ballantyne, the managing editor. He occupied what had been a rear hall
bedroom, 7 x 10 feet. He was six feet two tall, and if he had not been
of an orderly nature, there would not have been room in that back
closet, with its one window and flat-topped desk, for his feet and the
retriever, Snip--the only dog Field ever thoroughly detested.
Ballantyne's room was evidently arranged to prevent any private
conferences with the managing editor. It boasted a second chair, but
when the visitor accepted the rare invitation to be seated, his knees
prevented the closing of the door. The remainder of this floor of the
centre building and the whole of the same floor of the next building
south were taken up by the composing room. A door had been cut in the
wall of the building to the north, just by Mr. Ballantyne's room,
through which, and down three steps, was the space devoted to the
editorial and reportorial staff of the Morning News. The front end of
this space was partitioned off into three rooms, 7 x 12 feet each.
Field claimed one of these boxes, the dramatic critic and solitary
artist of the establishment one, and Morgan Bates