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Perhaps of all the different kinds of papers, that most useful to the
beginner is the "popular weekly" class, chiefly represented by _Tit-Bits,
Answers, Pearson's Weekly, Cassell's Saturday Journal_, and _Success_.
These papers pay liberally and promptly (one or two of them before
publication), and they do not exact from the contributor a high literary
standard. Their matter falls into two main divisions: articles beginning
with "How"--broadly, "How the other half lives;" and articles enumerating
curious facts and incidents--for example, "Peers who have become Cabmen."
If you can evolve novel and striking subjects, and have the patience to
collect such information as may be necessary to work the subjects out,
you may fairly rely upon gaining entrance sooner or later to the columns
of these papers, however elementary your technique. Here is also a busy
market for short melodramatic stories--stories for which "action" and a
certain ingenuity of plot are the only essentials. Do not imagine that
the editors of this sort of periodical are easily pleased. Although they
care nothing for the graces of style, they know precisely what they
want, and they insist on getting it.

Next to the popular penny weeklies as prey meet for the aspirant, I name
the three "Gazettes," the _Pall Mall_, the _Westminster_, and
the _St. James's_. These--the first two especially--make a point of
their hospitality to the outside contributor. They appeal of course to a
cultured class, and they are catholic in their tastes--ready for anything
provided it is topical and well done. They pride themselves on being
literary, and therefore good style is essential. In this particular, and
also in their habits of returning rejected MSS. with promptness, and of
paying regularly without demanding the delivery of an account, they differ