Happy Days.

It was these spasmodic cattle and coal boats that the active reporter marked for his own, and many a scoop was brought off by the early bird. The Auckland merchants, particularly those closely connected with shipping, such as Thomas Henderson, J. S. Macfarlane, S. J. Edmonds, Coombes and Daldy, and others would often, after a "scoop" had been made, slap the young reporter on the back as he went down the east side of Queen Street between ten and eleven in the morning (when most of them were standing on the side walk smoking their pipes) and say to him: "Well done!" There was a distinct personal pleasure about the work of a newspaper reporter in those days, and when recalling my experiences I say, without any reservation, "The best time of my life was the eight years that I was marine reporter in Auckland's early days." There was ample scope in those days for enterprise in securing "scoops," but ever since the United Press Association was started over forty years ago, and now that the Journalists' Union (recently formed) has a time limit of eight hours work only, and other arbitrary conditions, everything is brought down to a dead level and it is seldom any paper makes a real "scoop." The Journalists' Union, however, has had one good effect—reporters are now paid an adequate salary for their labour. When I was reporting on the "Southern Cross" and "Herald," I was for several days at work from five in the morning until two or three the next morning, and never on any occasion, with the exception of Saturday, left the office before 1 a.m. For this I received less than the salary of a present day junior reporter.