|
|Mrs. Markovits of 3128 Cedar street have |
|gone into deep mourning, draped their |
|home in crepe and announced to their |
|friends that Sarah is |
|dead.--_Philadelphia Ledger._ |

Or the story may be handled in a more humorous way, thus:

| There is really no objection to him, |
|and she is quite a nice young woman, but |
|to be married so young, and to go on a |
|wedding journey with $18 in their |
|purses--but Wallace Jones, student of the|
|Western University, and Ruth Smith, |
|student in the McKinley High School, |
|decided it was too long a time to wait, |
|and a nice old pastor gentleman in St. |
|Joe has made them one.--_Milwaukee Free |
|Press._ |

=7. Obituaries.=--Like many other classes of newspaper stories, the
obituary has developed a conventional form which is followed more or
less rigidly by all the papers of the land. Every obituary follows the
same order and tells the same sort of facts about its subject. It begins
with a brief account of the deceased man's death, runs on through a very
condensed account of the professional side of his life and ends with the
announcement of his funeral or a list of his surviving relatives.

The lead is concerned only with his death, answering the usual
questions about _where_, _how_, and _why_, and is written to stand alone
if necessary. It ordinarily begins with the man's full name, because of
course the name is the most important thing in the story, and then tells
who he was and where he lived. This is followed, perhaps in the same
sentence, by the time of his death, the cause, and perhaps the
circumstances. Thus:

| CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 25.--Dr. John H.|
|Blank, professor of Greek at Harvard |
|since 1887 and dean of the Graduate |
|School since 1895, died at his home in |
|Quincy street today from heart trouble. |
|Professor Blank was an authority on |
|classical subjects.--_New York Tribune._ |

This, as you see, might stand alone and be complete in itself. Many
obituaries, however, add another paragraph after the lead in which the
circums