2nd Reading Quotes

“A gentleman shoots at you through the window and cripples me; a bomb-shell comes down the stove-pipe for your gratification and sends the stove-door down my throat; a friend drops in to swap compliments with you, and freckles me with bullet-holes till my skin won't hold my principles; you go to dinner, and Jones comes with his cowhide, Gillespie throws me out of the window, Thompson tears all my clothes off, and an entire stranger takes my scalp with the easy freedom of an old acquaintance; and in less than five minutes all the blackguards in the country arrive in their war-paint, and proceed to scare the rest of me to death with their tomahawks (27-28).”
All the bad things that could possibly happen to the main character, (who in this story is unnamed), happen to him in the short time in which he is this publishing spot. The method of hyperbole is used to describe these events, being down as “bomb-shells”, “bullet-holes” and even scalping. The brutal and violent methods that are pictured shows the reaction of the public to newspapers in a real way. Twain is using this hyperbole to show that newspaper complains are more condescending than they should be and that they are often given to the wrong ears, since the main character, who is new there and had no prior experience with the paper, was the one to be given all the pain. It gives the idea that those that are in the business the longest will be able to survive by sacrificing younger reporters to the complains of the masses.

“I had rather all his friends should die than that I should be driven to the verge of lunacy again in trying to cipher out the meaning of another such production as the above (51)”.
After being confronted with a confusing letter about the news of a friend’s death, the main character tries to get the story together to be able to report it even though the owner of the newspaper does not wish to waste space with it. After trying to find out the meaning to be able to do so anyway the main character gets frustrated and gives up on it stating the said quote. The care for others is less than the amount of work that one has to do for it. There is a sense of non-caring that shows up. While he would have cared if it were clearly written, due to the trouble there is in getting the point of it, the caring goes away and it doesn’t matter. Doing less work is more important than other people and caring.

"Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I think it is sense. I have no doubt that every year millions and millions of bushels of turnips are spoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a half-ripe condition, when, if they had sent a boy up to shake the tree— (56)”.
As the wise man states "Turnips don't grow on trees!" It’s something that even I know and just shows the lack of research that went into the project and how little the main character cares for accuracy. Instead of trying to write something helpful for an advice column he turns out nonsensical madness, just to get people to laugh at it and get people to buy it. Twain uses hyperbole by picking such a simple statement to mock, showing how far reaching that one is willing to go to get an audience.

“[…] [T]he less a man knows- the bigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands (68)”.
In the newspaper industry people are hired because they’re able to drum up noise not because they know much about the industry that they are hired to work in. This realization shows that people want to read about stuff that is entertaining more than it is factual. The more that a write stumbles makes the piece only more interesting. This would mean that those that know less are able to get more attention than those that don’t and are able to control others with their exposure. This exposure can lead others that don’t know much to follow them, which in a way can create a chain of non-knowing and brainwashing.

“And I'd have given you the best class of readers that ever an agricultural paper had—not a farmer in it, nor a solitary individual who could tell a watermelon-tree from a peach-vine to save his life. You are the loser by this rupture, not me, Pie-plant (69)”.
In industry more business is better than the right business. Even though newspapers are supposed to educate others and teach them things, the fan base is the most important part of a newspaper so the educational aspect can be sacrificed for the sake of obtaining it. Capital is much more important than the idea of people being smart in it. This idea is being satirized by Twain who shows just how ridiculous these papers can be just to get viewers to read them.