Judge — October 12, 1929 — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

—— Nis How’s Your Circulation ? Mr. Bonsal, circulation man- ager of the Daily Mirra, sat down beside me and said: “I'm trying to ine! ion of our aybe you se the circul paper and IT thought 1 could help me.” “What have you tried, Mr. Bonsal?” “Well,” said Mr. Bonsal, “last month we tricd fish, It was called The Mirra Do-You-Want A-Fish? Contest, and every day we offered a fish to the person sub- mitting the best name with O- word essay on why they wanted a fish. In case of a tie we cut the fish in two and gave half to each tying contestant. No mem- ber of the staff or his family was ved to enter the contest; which was too bad, be- cause my little girl submitted a peach of a name. I didn't have the heart to tell her she'd lost so I bought her a can of sardines at the corner store and told her ‘Georgette’ had won, “Was the contest a success?” T asked. so-so. We increased our pn 160 copies but our was full of flies all the “We tried practically the same scheme when I was on the Troy Record,” I said. * away a horse to every winner. Our editor had a lot of old horses, you see; so we had nothing to lose. I re ber it so well. We moved our city editor up stairs and fixed his room into a sort of oat-bin. Then the staff got feed- ing the horses during hours and we had to give up the idea.” Mr. Bonsal said: “Something like a limerick contest is better because you don't have to worry about clean water and fresh oats. Once—” “Yes, yes; I know what you mean, Mr. Bonsal,” I said, inter- rupting. “Something like: ‘There was a young man from Nantucket, who went to hell in a bucket; and when— ” “That's it exclaimed Mr. Bonsal. “Or, the one about: ‘There was a young man from the cape—’” “Yes. That's the idea exactly! Well, we tried that last year, much to our regret. A stenogra- “Damn! Doesn't any one plant four-leaf clovers?” pher submitted a last line which was pretty darn good. Let’s see if I can't remember it... . Oh, yes. It went: ‘—that terrible man from Kildare.’ She was sup- posed to get a dollar but her lime- rick went to the Help Wanted de- partment. In some inexplicable manner we sent her a colored chauffeur by mistake. it ias a mess, wasn't it, Mr. Bons: I said, sympa thetically. “By the way, we've had excellent luck with auto- You mean autographed base balls nquired Mr. Bonsal. “No,” [ replied. “Better than that. We offered autographed vegetables. It went over big. For instance, if you had what we called a ‘Lucky Buck’ we'd send you a baked ‘potato signed by Rudy Vallée or Lou Gehrig or Helen Meany. Some days were spe d, as an added attrac- tion, we'd give n of al- phabet soup containing the names of famous movie actors and ac- tresses. It took so well that our head typesetter opened a grocery ross the street would it b Bonsal, “to sell ho the Mirra as a pri “Then you would have to call it the Daily Horse, wouldn't * T replied. but wouldn't the news- boys find difficulty in’ throwing them up on the stoops? And, how would they stack up on the newsstands alongside of the New York Times, and where would you find the editorials?” Offhand, I would think that your newsboys would have to be jockeys. Maybe you'd better get n edition of toilet soap, With piece of soap you can give away a lucky movie actress, and when the movie actresses ar- ed in their proper order they I spell the missing words in the puzzle.” “But, what shall we say on the news ps Mr. Bonsal, obviously perplexed. “Just say, “The person finding any news in this paper will re- Sound Beach M cr of the ) —Jacnx Civetr culation