Famous Single Poems
good stead, giving him a vast advantage over the ordinary run of reporters, and he probably had no difficulty in holding a job as long as he really wanted to.
In a letter to a friend dated November 9, 1896, Rose refers to his roving life, and adds: "I simply could not remain in one place, and I have wandered all over the North American continent, from Quebec to Vancouver, and from Mexico to Alaska."
Finally he started to walk across the continent from the Pacific coast, stopping to work whenever he ran out of money, and then starting on again. The year 1895 found him in Toronto, Canada, and there he had a severe attack of typhoid fever. His convalescence was slow, but as soon as he was able to take the road he started on again, and got as far as Montreal on what proved to be his last journey. At Montreal he was given a position on the staff of the Gazette, but after a few months moved over to the Herald.
During the years of his wanderings Rose had cultivated the knack of writing humorous and topical verses—a feature which most papers welcomed and which probably enabled him to escape the more arduous side of a reporter's duties. Legend has it that many such poems from his pencil went the rounds of the press, but if any have survived they are among those
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