Until Death . . .

In 1932 George W. Spayth scrapped a career as an editorial and features cartoonist (Milwaukee News, Washington Times, Houston Chronicle), borrowed $1,500 on an insurance policy, and started a weekly in Dunellen, N.J. With a fancy for hard work and a flair for the outlandish, Publisher Spayth has doggedly built his investment into three small Jersey weeklies and a shopping-news, this year will gross some $80.000.

For his tidy empire, Spayth has no heir apparent. His only son wants to stay in the drug business; his only daughter has a family to raise. Last week, at 66, Spayth was hunting for a successor with a characteristically flip and frank tactic. WANTED--A SUCKER LIKE I WAS, read his want ad in the Publishers' Auxiliary, a Chicago trade paper. Spayth's scheme: to hire someone willing to work as hard as he does, in return for a regular salary plus weekly lOUs that would be converted into a down payment on the paper. Spayth's condition: "The closing of title to take place 24 hours after my carcass cools off, with the balance due being secured by first mortgage in favor of my heirs, who do not want on a platinum platter what I hacked out the hard way."

At week's end Spayth's candid appeal had attracted a couple of dozen queries from young newsmen willing to wait as well as work for their future.

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