Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/206

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a, Act IV .

commencement week with the graduating class . Roses in pro- :

fusion were tossed over the foot lights to the leading woman of the play who was a member of the class of 'o3, of X .” As the commencement exercises had occurred eight days before the above notice, the members of the graduating class were scattered

far and wide rather than attending the theater in New York City , while the leading actress , who was stated to be a graduate of the

college, had never been even enrolled as a student there . The advertiser is sometimes a brother of the reporter in care lessness. One advertiser recently ran a daily advertisement for

two months after his store had been burned out. Another ad vertiser ran for two months an undated advertisement of a " great sacrifice of automobiles for five more days only , ” followed by a list of cars for sale and the statement " prices quoted above limited to five days only .” The proof reader must also share the errors of the reporter. It is difficult to locate a prominent citizen and his wife when one

pageof a local paper states that they are at their summer home in Massachusetts and the next page that they are motoring in the Pyrenees ; an important chamber concert was recently reported as one where “ several selections from C . Hopin were played .” ?

A local account of a Christmas celebration recently read : “ Last night the college met for the annual signing of Christmas cards. At half past nine the choir descended to the library bower. Here under the stairs they sang the well-known Christmas carols to the college waiting below . At ten o 'clock the choir came down

and all went home.” Translated, this meant, “ The college met for the annual singing of Christmas carols. The choir ascended the

library tower and under the stars sang carols to the college waiting below .” The account as published in a local morning paper was copied verbatim by a local evening paper. Carelessness merges imperceptibly into blundering and this

in its turn is responsible for innumerable errors. A local paper of April 6 announces that C . College " opens for the short term ,”

meaning that it re -opens after the spring vacation, - theacademic ? H . B . Wheatley gives many illustrations of the blunders found in news papers , - -amusing in themselves, yet lending color to the general impression of the untrustworthiness of the press. — Literary Blunders, chap . II .