# The Making of a Magazine: A Tour Through the Vast Organization of the New Yorker

Commissioned by the New Yorker magazine in 1925, this tongue-in-cheek work originally published in twenty separate installments. IA

## Introduction

Some Statistics $^{The}$ Funny Little Things
BEFORE we attempt to show the Reader the vast process that lies behind the making of a great magazine like The New Yorker, it is no doubt wise to give him first a bird's-eye view of the tremendous circulation which so vitally depends upon each weekly issue (for if it were not for these weekly issues, there would simply be no circulation of The New Yorker). It is our hope here to open his eyes to the stupendous organization of which he forms a part, ere we acquaint him with the more detailed aspects of that organization and the size and scope of its equipment.
Let us suppose for the nonce that each issue of The New Yorker is a red corpuscle and all the readers are fingers, toes, etc., on the great body politic. This means that Uncle Sam has 8,657,000 fingers and toes, and every week these extremities must receive their red corpuscles regardless of wind nor rain nor storm on their appointed rounds. Have you any conception of the size of that heart which must pump so vast a circulation of red corpuscles through all (a) the veins and (b) arteries extending up and down the great body of Uncle Sam until they reach you, the fingers and toes ? What is this heart that so faithfully beats for us each week, pumping us our weekly subscription?
Here it is Friday; and at a rough estimate there have been probably thirty or eighty millions of people who have bought The New Yorker since last night; and the returns from Maine are not due till to-morrow. This means that if you add all these figures together and multiply them by the number you just thought of, then the card there in your hand is the eight of clubs. Perhaps the following illustration may serve to bring home to the average mind the magnitude of these figures: First, conceive in your mind's eye the entire populations of New York, New Haven, Hartford and a fourth city about the size of Pittsburgh (let us say, Pittsburgh), and picture them arranged kneeling side by side single file in a long line, all blind-folded, and holding in their hands the combined output of the New York Times, the Saturday Evening Post, and Dr. Frank Crane. Now suppose that someone were to sneak up and give the first man in line a sudden shove. Why, over they all would go like so many nine-pins, and wouldn't it be fun though?
Perhaps it will make our point clearer if we borrow a few statistics; and for our purpose let us borrow the statistics belonging to the Willimantic (Conn.) Iron Pipes and Gadgets Company. According to these statistics, there was an increase of 10,000 over 20,000 the year before (or Â£&:Â£o8Â» and cancel the noughts= 1 /^=50%= increase for 1925, An*.). On the other hand the Stickum Rubber Company in the same city was forced to shut down its factories a week during the hot spell, at a loss $3,650.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa B â€” The New Yorker Câ€”Our Mr. Tilley
Returning these statistics again to the Willimantic Iron Pipes and Gadgets Company, with many thanks, we shall now take up the production of wool in Mesopotamia in January.
We shall now abandon the production of wool in Mesopotamia in January (which didn't turn out to be so very interesting after all; and no one more surprised than we were, either) and from the foregoing statistics we may draw our own conclusions. There is no need at this time of going more fully into the conclusions that were drawn, but suffice it to say that the winning conclusion was drawn by Miss Etheline Lint, stenographer, of 31 Archer Street, Mott Haven, who held number eighty-seven.
Now that this little glimpse into Statistics Land has given you some idea of the vast circulation of The New Yorker, let us start on our tittle tour through the great organization behind that circulation, making stops at Tennessee and other points of interest along the way, and observing as we go the industry, the cleanliness and system of this paper. For this trip we should advise a complete change of clothing, two blankets, and comfortable footwear, since there is nothing so important on a journey as easy feet except (ah yes) â€” The New Yorker.

## I. SECURING PAPER FOR THE NEW YORKER

$_{CuttingdownthespeciallygrowntreestomakepaperforTheNewYorker.Attheright,supervisingthework,maybeseenOurMr.EustaceTilley,oneofTheNewYorker'sspecialsuperintendentsofforestry.}$
THE most essential feature of a magazine is paper. You might assemble all the vast organization of The New Yorker, with its hundreds of thousands of workers in all the innumerable branches of the industry; you might gather all the type, ink and other accessories of printing ; you might even operate the huge presses week in and week out, turning out the 8,657,000 copies of The New Yorker. But if you did not have any paper, the result would not be a magazine; and all those issues of The New Yorker you had worked so hard to produce would have to be thrown away.
The first man to realize the importance of paper in the manufacture of a magazine was Horace Greeley. In 1847 he bought two acres up in Haarlem, on the site where C. C. N. Y. now stands ; and upon this property he planted twenty-eight poplar seeds. It was his intention, "God willing" (as he put it), that these seeds should grow into trees, and from those trees The New Yorker should obtain the paper on which to print its issues.
In those early days, paper was derived from a number of sources â€” the backs of old envelopes, chewing gum wrappers, discarded Lily Cups â€” anything that came to hand. It was the duty of every member of the staff of The New Yorker to keep his eyes open on his way to the office, bringing in what paper he could secure on the way. Here the paper was assorted into sizes, and a trained staff, equipped with red erasers, rubbed it clean.
Meantime, the circulation of The New Yorker had grown from three to four to five and so on to seven figures ; and as the inefficiency of this method grew more apparent, the practicality of Mr. Greeley's plan was realized. For some time thereafter, The New Yorker depended for its paper on what wood it could gather around New York; but as the Bronx began to be built up and Central Park was taken over by the city, The New Yorker bought a vast tract of land in Maine, where they set out 5,260 trees. This scheme was dubbed at the time "The Maine Bubble" and was laughed at by everyone; but people since then have learned to laugh up the other sleeve.
In order to realize the number of trees which must be felled each week, for one issue of The New Yorker, the reader should try to visualize a vast forest of 8,657,000 trees, or sufficient trees when divided by 10 to equal 865, 700 trees. In other words, if the reader will picture one tree, and then multiply that tree by 10% of 86,570,000 trees, he may perhaps form some idea of how many trees 8,657,000 trees are. It is typical of the great New Yorker organization, that it owns and operates to-day the biggest paper forest in the world, covering 29,000,000 or so acres in Canada, Maine, and northern New Jersey, under the close supervision of The New Yorker's field superintendent, Mr. Eustace Tilley.
Although most of the paper for The New Yorker is made nowadays from these trees, nevertheless there is a certain percentage which is made in the old way, by picking it up here and there. The material best suited to this work has been found to be an oblong sheet of green paper issued by the United States Government, and bearing the words: "Five Dollars." From this single scrap, enough paper can be procured to print 52 copies; and to any reader who will submit such a bill to The New Yorker, the editors will mail a year's subscription free.
Gay paper jacks riding the specially cut logs from which the paper for The New Yorker
is made. In the center, directing the work, may be seen our Mr. Eustace Tilley, one of
The New Yorker's Field Superintendents of paperbacks

## II. LIFE AMONG THE PAPERJACKS

LIFE in The New Yorker's paper camps is but one more example of the spirit of co-operation that has made the magazine what it is today. It is estimated that 2,001,093 paperjacks are employed by The New Yorker in the Maine camp alone. To give you some conception of these figures, an area equal to half the State of Kansas is needed to raise sufficient grain to feed these men, and an area equal to the other half of Kansas is needed to clothe them. To meet this problem it was necessary for The New Yorker to purchase Kansas, at a considerable expense.
It is not easy for anyone who has not personally seen these paper camps at work to form any conception of the vast system, from the planting of the seed to the final slicing of the paper. The New Yorker must first raise the baby seedlings in its private nurseries before they can be set out "on their own" and if you have ever been around young trees much, you know what that means.
When the trees have grown to the great, strapping young saplings at last (and it seems only yesterday they were only so many sprouts no higher than your knee) they are taken on their first real outing to the woods, and in this healthy environment the happy treelets are allowed to stand around in the open air and simply grow until they have attained man's estate.
After the logs have been gathered and cut into lengths, it is necessary to roll them down to the river. Next the happy paper jacks straddle the slippery logs and ride them through the rapids, singing merrily the while. This phase of the work is sometimes most exciting and amusing, since the wild logs are not always broken and sometimes buck and attempt to unseat their riders into the icy water. A faint touch of the spurs which the paper jacks fasten to their boots, however, will send the most obstinate logs through the rapids at a gallop. (Incidentally these rapids are the personal property of The New Yorker, and are kept running night and day by means of seven large turbine engines of 579 horsepower each, making a total of 4,053 horses, or the equivalent of the Confederate cavalry during the battle of Antietam.)
Plenty of big trees, good sharp axes and crosscut saws, happy, happy paperjacks: these are the conditions under which The New Yorker paper camps are run. Hundreds (100s) of these camps, owned and operated by The New Yorker, extend through Maine and Canada, and are open from June to September, with good home cooking, bathing and canoeing, sing-songs at night around the council fires, reasonable rates. Address The New Yorker, 25 West Forty-fifth Street, attention Mr. Tilley.
Here in these happy surroundings the merry paper jacks often indulge in friendly contests of skill, testing their prowess in chopping with the axe. Fred, a powerful Canuck, who if laid end to end would reach six feet four in his stocking feet, was recently declared the champion paper jack, when he established a record time of one minute and twenty-seven seconds. We have never been able to discover what he did in this record time, but nevertheless "Fred" was immediately rewarded with a year's subscription to The New Yorker (equal to $5 in your money).
Postscript: It has just been brought to our attention that the very best paper isn't made from trees at all, but is really made from rags. Inasmuch as The New Yorker uses only the very best paper, it looks as though we don't get it from trees after all. But rather than throw 2,001,093 paperjacks out of work, we shall say nothing about it ; and next week we shall consider how The New Yorker paper is made from rags, just as if nothing had happened.

## III. GATHERING RAG5 FOR THE NEW YORKER

THE very best paper is made from rags; and accordingly The New Yorker has developed the finest known system for obtaining the cloth and preparing it for the mills. The number of people employed in this single phase of the industry alone would equal the population of the city of Los Angeles, Cal., if that were possible.
Rags were once not so easily obtained. In the early days the editors of The New Yorker found difficulty in making both ends meet; and at one time it seemed as though the magazine would have to be discontinued. The editors had given their shirts, handkerchiefs, and socks to be made into paper, and every available ribbon and bit of string were already in use. At the weekly board meeting an aged editor arose. "Gentlemen," he said in a trembling voice, "we have reached the crisis at last. We have no more paper."
It was at this crucial moment that a young member of the staff entered the room clad only in a barrel, and bearing in his outstretched hand the remainder of his clothing. With a shout of joy the board seized the offering; and upon the paper which was made from his clothes, they published a stirring appeal for the relief of this young man shivering in his barrel in the private offices of The New Yorker. This appeal had the desired effect ; the citizens of New York rallied from all sides with clothing, rags, sheets, and towels, anything that came to hand. From the windows of their Fifth Avenue mansions, prominent society matrons tossed down their silks and finery. Poor widows offered their petticoats, and aged men their flannels. Within a week the paper famine was over; The New Yorker's circulation advanced by leaps and bounds; and Otto Kahn (for the young man was none other than he) was amply repaid for his heroic sacrifice by a year's subscription to The New Yorker (worth $5, the price of a suit in those days).
To guard against any further recurrence of such a famine, The New Yorker at once employed 900-odd bands of gypsies who wandered about the country collecting rags to be made into cloth, under the direction of Mr. Eustace Tilley, The New Yorker's field superintendent in charge of ragpickers. These bands averaged 39,000 pounds a day, or an average of 2,640 pounds a man; and the system was in vogue until 1890, when the editors realized that they could no longer depend on the chance ragpicking to satisfy the ever-increasing circulation. Consequently the present elaborate system of procuring rags was adopted.
In a huge, sunlit factory at Niagara Falls, costing $960,000, to-day 7,600 dressmakers are employed in the manufacture of dresses exclusively for The New Yorker. For this purpose 26,000,000 yards of cloth a year are imported from England and France, to say nothing of Scotland â€” and for a very good reason. Now another trained staff of over 5,000 girls is employed by our organization to put on these dresses as soon as they are made, and set to work at once to wear them out. Methods in this work vary: Some girls crawl on their hands and knees, others slide down the banisters, while others spend the afternoon at Coney Island. Within a fortnight the dresses are completely worn out and are in rags ready for paper. The record time for wearing out a dress was made by Miss Madeline Buckle, a stenographer, who reduced a dress to rags in thirty-five minutes and fourteen seconds, by wearing it home in the West Side subway from Park Place to 165th Street. She also suffered two broken ribs, a fractured collar bone, and minor contusions.
Miss Buckle received as recompense a year's subscription to The New Yorker, which would have cost her five dollars if she had not been lucky enough to break her ribs.
In the next chapter we shall consider how paper is made.
Prominent society matrons giving their finery to relieve the great New Yorker paper shortage of 1882. Our Mr. Eustace Tilley, Director of the Committee on Paper Shortage, may be seen supervising the collection of the offerings

## IV. HOW PAPER IS MADE FROM RAG5

THE layman has little or no conception of what a piece of paper has to go through ; and your careless reader, absently tracing concentric circles on the clean, fresh pages of The New Yorker spread before him, seldom realizes the struggles, the beatings and heartaches that this little sheet has suffered since it was a glad rag upon milady's back so long ago. In order to appreciate what lies behind a sheet of paper, let us follow its adventures from the time it leaves milady's back to its ultimate position as a page in The New Yorker.
The rag is brought to the factory in a great bale, where it is pressed close to other rags, the dirty brown and white of peasants mingling with the gay silks of the capitals of Europe. When the bale is cut open, these rags are carefully sorted into two piles, pink and blue; these piles are then mixed together again, and the work of cleaning them begins. The rags are first run through a revolving cylinder known as a "thrasher," with revolving arms that dislodge the dirt and clean the rags.
The dirt having been carried away in huge machines like vacuum cleaners, only bigger, the rags are sorted by hand, and the dirt is removed, along with various other things like buttons, hooks and eyes, nickels, pennies and commutation tickets.
After they have been thoroughly cleaned, they are cut into small pieces and the dirt is removed from the seams ; they are then cleaned and put through a cylinder known as a "devil" or "whipper" or "Alfred R. Jenkins," which shakes and tears them and gets rid of the dirt.
$_{OneofthemanydebutantesemployedintheBagCleaningDepartmentofTheNewYorker.OnthetablemaybeseenthehatandglovesofourMr.EustaceTilley,oneofTheNewYorker'sDirectors-in-ChiefofBagCleaning}$
The rags must now be cleaned; and after they have been pounded, stepped on, and tossed in a blanket, they are loaded into great boilers or "digesters" filled with steam to a pressure of forty pounds, and these "margarets" turn meditatively on their axes twelve or fourteen hours until the rags are clean. Then the resulting mess is taken out and thoroughly washed, after which it is treated to a mixture of lime and soda or "Broadway Fizz, $.20."
At this point the cleaning process begins in earnest; for after a day in these "clinkers" or "sandwiches" the rags are run rapidly through huge "galoshes," after which they are emptied on the floor in a large "the" and shoveled into "washing machines" where they are washed. The next step is to clean the dirty mess ; and to accomplish this they are sent to a cleaner's, where the entire material is washed, dried and ironed. All that now remains is to soak the stuff thoroughly in boiling water, and then it is ready to be cleaned. Here the real work of cleaning starts.
First, the rags are placed in vast oval-shaped tubs or "tubs" about twenty-five feet long, nine feet wide, three feet deep, and twenty-five feet long by nine feet wide, capable of holding from one to two thousand pounds of rags. Around and around this tub the rags swish, and it is the duty of the workers to hit at them with mallets as they go by. They are now removed to another part of the factory, where more people hit at them with mallets; and for several days thereafter they are "freshmen" and anyone is privileged to hit at them with a mallet. This is supposed to remove the dirt.
After the cleaning process is completed, and our rag has been cleaned and the dirt removed, it is gathered up and carried in a limp condition to a complicated machine. There is no opportunity here to describe this machine more thoroughly, so suffice it to say that it is very involved indeed, with a great many wheels and levers and pet cocks and gadgets, and that it changes the rags into paper.
This result is called paper; and on it is printed The New Yorker.
While this elaborate explanation has given us all a minute picture of how rags are made into paper, yet there are other and more fascinating phases of the work of making a magazine. Five dollars insures your receipt of this illuminating series.
$_{Thrashingandmanglingragsfromwhichpaperismade.InthebackgroundmaybediscernedMr.EustaceTilleyhimself}$
$_{TicklinganinfuriatedsquidtogetinkforprintingTheNewYorker.InthebackgroundmaybeseenourMr,EustaceTilley,oneoftheGeneralManagersofSquidTicklers,directingtheticklishwork}$

## V. GETTING THE INK

IT has perhaps occurred to the careful reader of this series that a very-important element in the Making of a Magazine lies in obtaining ink to print the pages. If ink were not interposed between the type and the paper of the weekly issue of The New Yorker, the resulting sheets would be totally blank, and not only would the stories be quite incomprehensible, but the reader might well be under the impression that he was perusing a copy of the Dial,
Since the inception of The New Yorker, the first issue of which was printed in pencil in 1847, the problem of getting ink has indeed been a pressing one, to which hundreds of experts have devoted hours of study. In those early days, The New Yorker obtained its ink by the simple method of sending an office boy next door to the old Brevoort (now demolished) to fill the barrel of his fountain pen at the writing desk. Whenever the ink supply grew low, this office boy would hasten to the Brevoort to get more ink, sometimes making two and three trips in a morning. One day he conceived the idea of a double-barreled fountain pen, which would carry twice as much ink; and it was in this way that Thomas W. Lamont got his start.
Rapid strides in the circulation of The New Yorker soon made inadequate this antiquated method of ink fetching; and in addition the Brevoort fell into other hands and the ink wells were allowed to go dry. For a time thereafter The New Yorker got its ink from the inkberry (ilex glabra). This source soon proved insufficient, and in 1898 a statistical report showed that 39,000,000 gallons of ink were required for a weekly issue of The New Yorker. This report caused considerable consternation, but in accordance with the efficient organization of this magazine, the staff laid plans at once for its own ink base, where enough of this fluid could be obtained to meet the new demand.
Our readers are probably aware that the best ink nowadays is procured from the squid, a cephalopod mollusk of uncertain etymology.
In addition to this question of lineage, the squid is provided with an ink sac (says the International Encyclopedia) and when attacked it will discharge its mantle through its syphon, the ink passing out with the water as if from a syringe. In order to get ink from this strange creature it is necessary first to attack him in such a way that the ink will flow into an ink well or other handy receptacle ; and it may well be imagined that this work requires delicate handling. Methods of attack vary, but the most common are biting, kicking, and tackling just below the knees.
The most common form of attack is accomplished by means of a small tickler (Ludvig), consisting of three long feathers on the end of a stick. These feathers are slyly brushed over the squid's eyes, while he pettishly ducks his head and knocks them aside with his flippers. His resentment increases as this goes on and after an hour or so he has worked up enough indignation to fill a gallon can. At this point Mr. Eustace Tilley, one of The New Yorker's field superintendents in charge of ink, steps up suddenly in front of the squid, pulls his hat down over his eyes, yanks out his necktie, and unties his shoe laces; and as the outraged squid stumbles backward, he watches to see that none of the ink catchers misses a drop.
For every drop of ink, no matter how small, is estimated as worth five dollars. And you can see for yourself that if much ink were spilled, there would soon be no more five dollars left for persons to send as payment for a year's subscription to The New Yorker.

## VI. THE DEEP-SEA SQUID FARM

WHAT is perhaps the most unique dairy farm in the world lies seven miles from the coast of Florida, at a point just off Miami, and extends along the ocean bottom for four square miles, or the area of Rhode Island. On this vast farm, fully equipped with all modern conveniences, The New Yorker's Sub-Ocean Squid Farm is maintained ; and from the three million squids which are inked there nightly, the magazine receives sufficient fluid to print its entire weekly issue.
$_{Mr.EustaceTilley(upperleft),oneofTheNewYorker'sGeneralSuperintendentsofInking,ishereseendirectinganannualround-upofsquidsbyasquadronofTheNewYorker'sdeep-seacowboys.ThispicturewastakenneartheSargassoSea}$
In June, 1918, under the efficient organization of Mr. Eustace Tilley, who was given complete charge of this ink base, 1,000 or more of these rare squids were lassoed by deep-sea cowboys and corralled into a vast pen, at that time situated off Costa Rica, where they were branded and turned loose to graze. Pastured among the deep-sea seaweed, which grows along the ocean floor in abundance, these domesticated squids gradually increased in quality as well as number, until they were removed three million strong to their present quarters in 1920. This was before the boom in Florida real estate, and the land along the bottom of the ocean could then be bought for a ridiculously low figure. The Miami Rotary Club is said to have offered fabulous sums since then for the same property, owing to the fact that it is only five or six miles from the surface, and readily accessible by simply holding your nose and sinking. After the happy squids have browsed all day among the seaweed, they are herded together at night and driven into their stalls, with the air of a number of trained dogfish, which bark and snap at their heels. When everything is in readiness, a corps of five hundred ink maids, formerly employed as chorus girls in the New York Hippodrome tank, advance to the edge of the water, ink wells in hand; and by columns of four they march down the white marble steps to the squid stalls. Here they ink the squids, obtaining an average of 42,000,000 gallons nightly, or sufficient ink to print three editions of the Evening Journal, scare heads and all; as well as 85,000 gallons of colored ink from the red and blue squids.
The health of these squids, the hygienic conditions of the stables, and the cleanliness in handling the ink are personally supervised by Mr. Tilley. Ex- treme care is taken to keep The New Yorker free from foreign matter, such as La Vie Parisienne jokes. Every ink maid must thoroughly wash her hands before and after inking, and the deep-sea stables are scrubbed daily. All the ink is pasteurized before it is bottled.
With the recent increase of deep-sea expeditions, a new difficulty has arisen in the frequent encroachment upon this private property by explorers; and it was found necessary a few months ago to post the entire territory with "No Fishing Here" signs, after a party from the Arcturus, headed by an explorer named Mr. William Beebe, not only camped for the afternoon on the property, destroying valuable shrubs and littering the ground with empty sardine cans and paper cups, but in departing carried away several of the best squids as specimens. Tempers were strained to the boiling point when it was officially learned that Mr. Beebe had even gone so far as to claim the farm for the Museum of Natural History as his own discovery, and name it "The Sargasso Sea."
When the ink reaches The New Yorker, by means of the vast aqueduct designed by Colonel Goethals, it is rushed to the printing room, where it is spread out over the blank pages and allowed to dry. Experts with ink erasers then set to work to rub away all surplus ink, leaving the letters, phrases and sentences which form an issue of this magazine. The ink which is rubbed away is sold to the United States Government, and is used in printing five dollar bills.
A curious coincidence is the fact that one of these bills may be exchanged at The New Yorker office at any time for fifty-two issues of The New Yorker, all completely filled with this valuable ink.
The Carramba Quadruplets at Work Training "Plankwalker" and "Jennie Lind" Bluex
Ribbon Porcupines on The New Yorker's Quill Farm. Our Mr. Eustace Tilley, Field
Superintendent in Charge of Porcupines, May Be Seen in the Background

## VII. BINDING THE ?AQEIS

TRULY the sun never sets on The New Yorker. We have seen how the forests of northern Canada are combed for the trees that make our paper; we shall learn how the mines of far Peru yield the lead for our type. Yet before these printed pages may be sold each week they must be carefully fastened each to the next; and for the paper clips employed in linking these pages we must turn now to sunny Mexico, in the region of alkali and desert sand, where we find The New Yorker's gigantic Cactus Farm.
In its baby days the pages of The New Yorker were assembled and fastened together crudely by means of safety pins. Sometimes bent hair pins, elastic bands and even chewing gum were used in that hectic period, for with the growing circulation the editorial drawer of safety pins was soon depleted. A brief attempt to solve the difficulty by printing The New Yorker on one long piece of paper, which opened out like an accordion, was abandoned upon the invention of the subway and the editors cast about to discover a permanently satisfactory method of bind- ing the pages.
The period of 1857-1901 (known as the William L. Plaster Period, or simply "Wimple") is marked by the two great experiments conducted by The New Yorker in this field. The first attempt came during theUlysses Simpson Grant Administration, when the Democratic faction sought to clip the pages together with fish bones. These proved too brittle ; an exciting uprising ensued known as the "Astor House Riot," in which eighteen were killed and scores wounded, and in 1893 (August 3, to be exact) the discovery of the possibilities in Cactus Spines was made by a scientist in the employ of The New Yorker, who later made something of a name for himself by the invention of a lumpless potato for mashing in restaurants. Mr. Luther Burbank (for it was he) set out 697,000 small cactus plants on the plains of northern Mexico; and from these plants to-day sufficient spines are picked weekly to clip together the 8,657,000 copies of each issue, making due allowance for the considerable portion worn away in the trousers of the Mexican experts employed in this work. Meantime the circulation of The New Yorker increases weekly, and already the editors are debating the number of years ere these cactus spines will also prove inadequate to meet the growing demand. As an example of the farsightedness of this paper, we may men- tion that Mr. Eustace Tilley, The New Yorker's field superintendent in charge of the work of clipping the magazine, was dispatched last week to Wyoming to complete arrangements there for the establishment of a huge Quill (the genus Erinaceus) Farm, where 3,000,000 porcupines (Erethizon epixanthus) will be raised and trained against such a paper clip shortage.
Although work on this farm is still conducted with some degree of secrecy, it is a known fact that these porcupines (Erethizon epixanthus) are being taught painstakingly to back up against a sheaf of papers and deliver two spines exactly in place at the given command, and it is the hope of Mr. Tilley that in time these animals will assume this work of clipping entirely, thereby saving The New Yorker nearly $865,000 weekly, or the equivalent of 173,000 annual subscriptions.
After all the rest of the magazine has been assembled and bound together, however, there still remains the important work of gathering in the five dollar bills as they are sometimes humorously known. In order to accomplish this task The New Yorker relies on an in- genious plan known as popular "subscription," as it is called. To any man sending five dollars (five dollars) to our office to cover postage, tobacco and incidentals, The New Yorker will mail a year's subscription (or subscription) gratis.

## VIII. DIGGING TYPE FOR THE PRINTING

WE have taken up the various aspects of the work of printing a great magazine like The New Yorker, but this series could not be called complete unless we considered now the actual work of printing itself. For if it were not for type, and printing with type, The New Yorker would have to be printed in pictures instead, and probably sell for two cents in the subway like the illustrated Graphic, sometimes laughingly referred to as a "newspaper." Then another bad feature, too, would be that this series would have to be omitted.
Although it is no longer a surprise to the reader to learn that letters and words are mined far under the ground, yet there was a time not so long ago when the airplane itself was looked upon as an impossibility, and people used to laugh at the automobile. In those far-off days, The New Yorker obtained its letters from alphabet blocks, noodle soup, or even the monograms on the editor's watch and cuff links; and letters were used sparingly, hell being spelled h â€” 1 and damn d â€” n in those times. The typewriter had not been heard of, and they probably would not have believed it even if it had.
$_{Thememorable(willweeverforgetit?)lateafternoonofThursday,August26,1823,whenyoungJosephPulitzer,whilebendingtoavoidaplayfulceilingdraught,accidentallydiscoversthecuneiformsystemofinvertingtheletterMtomaketheletterW.OurMr.EustaceTilley,FieldSuperintendentofTypeMining,maybeseeninthebackgroundregisteringpolite,thoughconservative,surprise}$
In August, 1869, just . . . sixty-nine from twenty-five is nine from five is six, and six from two less one is, well, anyway . . . over fifty years ago, a young gold prospector in Chile, while washing out the dirt at the bottom of a stream preparatory to taking a bath, suddenly discovered two It's, a Y and a battered figure which might have been an E or an F or part of an old bed spring. Seizing his pickax he struck down into the earth and uncovered a rich vein of alphabet, including the letter S, which had been missing up to that time, our forefathers using F instead of S, as for example "Funny face" for "Sunny face/' followed by a sock on the jaw.
It may well be imagined that The New Yorker's Mr. Eustace Tilley was not slow to perceive the possibilities in this new form of American letters. He at once bought 3,000 acres from Mr. J. P. Morgan, the young prospector, and sank shafts all over this area; and within six months The New Yorker was receiving over half its type from Chile, and negotiating to buy Peru. The early mines were lucky enough to strike it rich, dozens of O's being pulled out at one stroke, linked together like sausages; and these O's were sometimes left in pairs to form the figure 8.
In fact, the only difficulty that was experienced in the whole alphabet was the total absence of W. For a long time the magazine had to be called The Ne Yorker until a young man chanced one day to put his head between his legs, and, considering the problem from this new angle, he discovered that what was being exploited as an M vein was really a rich strain of inverted W. By turning the dredging machinery upside down and working it standing on their heads, our workmen were able to mine excellent W's from then on. That boy was Joseph Pulitzer ; and as a reward he received the Pulitzer Harmonica Prize, worth about $5, or a year's subscription to The New Yorker.
It may well be conceived that in so vital a work, one so all-important to the success of the magazine, The New Yorker has spared no effort to arrange every detail in mining the type, from the ground down. No letter is so small but that it has its place in the scheme of things; and in The New Yorker lead mines, operated by the type representative, Mr. Tilley, one letter receives just as much attention as the next, and is read and answered personally by Mr. Tilley himself. Sometimes these letters contain a five-dollar bill and to all such correspondents Mr. Tilley invariably mails back a year's subscription, just to show his appreciation and good will.
A group of The New Yorker's highly-specialized General Utility Men, comprising Blue Ribbon Logarithmists, Anagramatists, ExCross Word Puzzle Workers and Tea Tasters, puzzling over the carefully selected bench-made syllables which will eventually be put together as words, sentences and articles. In the left background may be seen our Mr. Eustace Tilley, one of The New Yorker's Staff of Syntax Engineers

## IX. THE CONSTRUCTION OF OUR SENTENCE5

MINING the letters that make up the words and phrases of an issue is only the first phase of the all-important work of printing The New Yorker. Before these letters may be used, they must be arranged by experts in the form of words, and these words in the form of sentences, and these sentences in the form of paragraphs; and even after they have been laid one below another in the form of stories and articles they must be placed in such order that the pages follow consecutively throughout the magazine. Six hundred trained mathematicians from Yale, Columbia, Harvard and other universities are employed in the work of numbering these pages alone. Let us say for example that the car coming up from the mine contains, among other things, the letters, f, v, d, 1, 1, r and s. These letters are laid in a row along the ground. Now from the next car the experts select several vowels, such as i, e, o, and, a. The experts then gather in a conference, and various suggestions are considered as to possible combinations of these letters to make words. The first combination suggested, let us say, is "Schenectady." An effort is made then to arrange these letters in the form of "Schenectady," and is later abandoned because they haven't got a "g."
The experts then put their heads together again over the letters and think of other words, like "minestrone" or "gnat" or some meaningless combination of letters like Buckner; until someone, let us say Morris Gest, notices that if the letters are arranged in some such order as f, i, v, e, d, o, 1, 1, a, r, and s, they would be exactly equal to a year's' subscription to The New Yorker. This game is called Anagrams.
The problem of delivering these letters to the presses was long a difficult one, and efforts to carry them one by one were abandoned after it was pointed out that it was useless to go to all this work of arranging them in the form of words, if all you did was take them apart again to carry them somewhere else. For a long time one of the Special Printing Representatives of The New Yorker, Mr. Eustace Tilley, was in a quandary; but chancing to glance at the ground one day he discovered a small animal with a hard shell on its back, which seemed capable of bearing the burden. These animals, known as slugs, have since come into such great demand for bearing type that The New Yorker has found it necessary to establish a slug farm, where they may be raised carefully in sufficient quantities to meet the needs of The New Yorker.
After the letters have been mounted on these slugs and are in the form of words, they must be arranged next in sentences; and before a sentence may be used in The New Yorker it must be cleaned and polished. The work of brightening these sentences is accomplished by a trained editorial staff of 5,000 men named Mr. March ; and when they are sufficiently polished they are used for example by Mr. Ring Lardner in that story he is going to write. Sentences in The New Yorker vary in length from six inches to six months or $100 fine or both.
Perhaps we have the words: "Subscribe," "The," "to," "New," and "Yorker"; the problem of arranging these words is the next to occupy the experts. In the first place we note there are four words capitalized ; therefore we deduce that one of those four must stand at the beginning of the sentence. While many possible combinations may be obtained, such as: "New The to Yorker Subscribe," or "Yorker to New Subscribe The," the only one that seems to be at once direct and logical is: "Subscribe to The New Yorker."
$_{AsceneatoneofTheNewYorker's'punctuationfarmsinSouthCarolina.VlajmurTolstoisson,ChiefWaterboy,isseenpouringwaterdownthebacksofabedofexclamationmarksandsobreakingtheirspiritsandbendingthemintoquestionmarks.Thework,asalways,iscarefullyobservedbytwoprofessorsfromHarvard.OurMr.EustaceTilley,GeneralSuperintendentatthefarm,maybeseeninthebackgroundseverelybutpolitelyreprimandinga***waterboyforgrimyfingernails}$

## X.THE MAGAZINE'S PUNCTUATION FAR.

PUNCTUATION is one of the prominent features of The New Yorker; and no one of our sentences is complete without at least a comma or a semicolon. Indeed, it is estimated roughly that approximately 1,050 colons are used in every issue; while exclamation points, quotation marks and apostrophes are frequently included, and question marks are often demanded among the editorials. In fact, if all the periods on one page of an issue of The New Yorker were laid end to end, they would probably have been written by Michael Arlen.
With so great a demand for punctuation in every issue, the reader may form some conception of the vast work of producing a sufficient quantity to supply the weekly issue of The New Yorker. All this punctuation is raised at our own farms under hothouse glass, and is carefully cultivated by a trained staff of farm hands, 3,000 in the Long Island Gardens alone, who are recruited from almost every State in the Union. Only trained hands are employed in this delicate work, the very latest processes of irrigation, fertilization, pruning, and dry-cleaning being installed in all our nurseries. Every punctuation bed is inspected daily by The New Yorker's representative, Mr. Tilley.
The period (.) is perhaps the simplest form of punctuation, since this is the seed, and from this is raised virtually every other form of punctuation upon the farm. The periods are set out in shallow pans under glass in the early Spring, and carefully watered; and after six weeks of sunshine each sends down a tiny root no bigger than a bean (,) which is called a comma. These commas are gathered in this stage, dried and shipped to the presses.
In another section of these nurseries, these periods are planted upside down, either separately or in pairs, and a strong light is burned night and day beneath them to confuse the seeds even further. As a result they send their roots into the air, in the form of single or double quotation marks (" or ").
Contrary to popular opinion, colons (:) are not derived simply by placing two periods together. On the contrary, a period must be allowed to flower and go to seed; and in the long pea-shaped pod the colons are found fully developed in the Fall.
Let us suppose that some of these sprouts are not gathered and dried for commas and semicolons, but are brought into the greenhouses instead. Here they are carefully nurtured and cultivated; and with the most painstaking care they are raised into the more intricate figures of punctuation. Sometimes they are cross-bred with asparagus, and the tall shoot is used for an exclamation point ( !). A handsome bed of crocuses may be seen as you enter the greenhouse, and immediately to your right is a plot of %%%%'s which are em- ployed frequently in these very statistics. To your left is an attractive bed of full-blown ats @@@@. In the very center is a flourishing garden of mixed blossoms ! ft> % & ? Â§ ? % ft Powie! Zam! Ouch! ! !, occasionally used to denote profanity or anger.
Asterisks (*****) flourish most profusely in a good, black loam. They are found in quantities in rich dirt, and a hardy flowering perennial, the "Elinor Glyn," blooms the year round, the tips of its dainty white petals suffused with a passionate pink glow.
A most intricate punctuation mark faces you as you leave the greenhouse. To achieve this difficult figure, two stakes are driven into the ground, immediately to the left of a figure five, thus: 115. Now a period is planted at the foot of the stakes, and the vine is carefully trained in and out the wire meshing; and when fully grown the result is $5. This figure is employed in The New Yorker circulation ads, as it equals the price of a year's subscription.

## XI. CIRCULATION PROBLEM, IF ANY

PROBABLY never before in the history of our country has any magazine faced the gigantic prob- lem of distribution which The New Yorker must solve weekly. In order to deliver a circulation extending well into the hundreds of millions, to say noth- ing of the three copies which are given gratis each week to the Public Library, the staff has found it necessary to em- ploy another staff so large that the add- ed distribution of copies of The New Yorker among this new staff alone is larger than the total number of copies which they are supposed to deliver. These statistics are offered free for what they are worth, in hopes that the reader may form some conception of the immen- sity of this weekly total.
Naturally the problem of distribution was not always so difficult. When the magazine was founded in 1867 there were only two subscribers, both of them the Editor. As the cir- culation increased, the Editor used to carry the copies about the city personally on the back of his high-wheeled bicycle af- ter working hours. This nat- urally made him the butt of considerable ridicule ; and Ellis Parker Butler, at that time a columnist on the Evening Post, used to refer to him as "the editor pedalling his wares," a mot which was long bandied about town and later made in- to a play for the Shuberts.
This barb of ridicule had the desired effect; and in addition the fact that the following year
a new subscriber opened an account in Staten Island (a day's journey by boat in those days, and a terrible hill to climb when you got off) forced the Editor in 1883 to abandon his bicycle. After a brief experiment with homing pigeons, he hired a messenger to deliver the numbers on horseback. Later this gave way to delivering them by trolley car, and still later by telephone; this latter practice, however, was abandoned in
Delivering The New Yorker in 1870. The Editor is here seen seated on his high-wheeled bicycle wait- ing for Mr. Terwilliger Tilley, grandfather of our present Mr. Eustace TUley, to give the signal to start distribution. Behind the Editor may be seen James Buchanan (afterward President Buchanan), an early supporter of The New Yorker
1899 owing to the fact that subscribers constantly complained of receiving the wrong numbers.
In 1900 Mr. Eustace Tilley, the head of The New Yorker's Subscription Department, discovered that the prob- lem had grown beyond all reason, and traffic rules on Forty-fifth Street were being disrupted daily by the army of news boys who gathered about The New Yorker office when the issues were due. After a hurried consultation with Postmaster-General Hays he completed an arrangement by which The New Yorker was assigned 180,000 special postmen, whose sole duties were to de- liver copies of this magazine on Friday.
New Yorker Postmen are selected
carefully for their poise and urbanity, and are known for their ability to dis- cuss intelligently the Theatre and Art criticisms with the subscribers. In ad- dition they are trained to bring in to The New Yorker from time to time delicious bits of anecdote which they find on the backs of postal cards and which are used in the "Talk of the Town" department.
In return for this generosity on the part of the Government, The New Yorker not only feeds and clothes these postmen, but in addition presents them each Christmas with a year's subscrip- tion to The New Yorker, equal to five dollars, or almost double the annual sal- ary they receive from the Government.
An early example of the horse- driven press; used in 1901-1884 (q-v.) to print The New Yorker. "Pegasus," later the Pride of the New York Fire Department, is here depicted furnishing the motive force (hence the term "horse power" â€” q.v.) Mr. Terwilliger Tilley, then foreman of the presses, was at the moment, unfor- tunately, out to lunch. Tal- madge Kerr, his assistant, how- ever, may be seen reading proof in the background

## THE VOMG OF PMNTING PREJ5E5

EIGHT thousand giant presses, revolving day and night at the terrific speed of sixty revolutions to the second, turn out every minute, 500,000 copies apiece of this great magazine, all folded, cut, dried, pasted, varnished, and delivered up to the waiting pressmen in attractive tissue-paper parcels tied with holly ribbon. Each of these gigantic Engines of Industry, composed of 65,000 separate pieces, is assembled and operated under the personal direction of our Mr. Eustace Tilley, The New Yorker's foreman in charge of Press Work.
Perhaps a detailed explanation of the long and difficult operation of these presses may help the reader to form some conception of this important step in the Making of a Magazine. Let us say, a sheet of paper about a foot long by two feet wide is injected into the tweezle, or maw. Two giant clobbers, equipped with long steel jaws, are clamped over the edge of this paper, and it is rapidly septembered, or octobered, through a series of hot steam baths, followed by a vigorous rub-down, and a massage by a mike. It is now ready to be printed, an operation which is too long and difficult to describe here, and which may perhaps have helped the reader to form some conception of this important step in the Making of a Magazine.
Although the first copy of The New Yorker was printed in pencil in 1847, the invention of the Printing Press the following year brought rapid changes. A printing press in those days was a crude enough affair, consisting of a large Atlas on top of which the Editor sat, thus printing one issue, while he wrote the copy for the next. As The New Yorker grew in circulation and the pile of magazines increased, Mr. Greeley used to hire a boy to come in on spare afternoons and sit on the Atlas; and it was in this way that "Big Bill" Edwards worked his way through Princeton.
The adoption of mechanical presses came in the nick of time, for the increasing circulation of The New Yorker was forcing the staff to sit on issues day and night, in order to meet the demand, and the paper was rapidly getting out of touch with events. In 1886 The New Yorker adopted a large press consisting of two round rubber discs, like a clothes wringer, which was driven by horses. Later, the horse gave way to the automobile; and a printing press driven by auto was ordered the following year (1870) and arrived by parcels post in 1912.
The first electrical press, according to legend, consisted of only 24,927 pieces, over half of which were cotter pins, and was named Bertha. The following year 2,167 more parts were added from another printing press which had been dismantled, and as a result the New Bertha not only printed the magazine, but also glanced through it afterwards for proof corrections, separated the issues into piles of five hundred, and rang a little bell. Encouraged by this progress the Editors advertised far and wide for more spare parts; and among the roller skate wheels, monkey wrenches, and old bed springs which poured into their office, they found a quantity of available additions, including a piston ring, three flywheels, and a rare gasket, or female gadget. The addition of 30,174 more parts the following year, which the Editor found under the back seat of a second-hand car he had bought, brought the total up to the present figure, and developed, perhaps, the most efficient printing press in the world, which not only writes the magazine but answers the telephone, runs errands, and does the upstairs work.
In fact, so lifelike are these presses becoming that they may be said fairly to think; and as an encouraging example of this tendency, The New Yorker was pleased to receive yesterday from the largest of these Presses a personal check for five dollars ($5.00) for a year's subscription to The New Yorker â€” an act which might be called almost human.

## BIRD'5 EYE VIEW OF OUR SPECIAL DEPARTMENT

WITH so vast an organization as The New Yorker, it is apparent, even to the casual reader, that if all the work were done in one room, this room would be so big that there would be no building in New York large enough for it, and that as a result, the room would have to be built outside the building instead, and all the machinery would rust over the Winter.
After considering this problem from all angles, in 1887 The New Yorker decided to put each department in a separate room (named "Private," after the father of our Mr. Tilley, a private in the Civil War), and connecting with every other room by means of pneumatic air-tubes, or butler's pantries. Throughout the great New Yorker building at 25 West Forty-fifth Street there are scattered, at the last count, over four hundred and eighty-six of these "Private" rooms, in which are housed the separate units of this enormous industry of making a magazine.
On the forty-sixth floor, for example, is located the Initial Department, where proper nouns are sent to be capitalized. This department is run under the personal direction of Mr. Eustace Tilley, and is equipped with huge magnifying lenses, placed on a table before a strong light. When a word is sent to this department for capitalization, these magnifying glasses are focused upon the first letter until it is enlarged to the size of an Initial, when it is printed. These Capital Letters are used to begin every sentence in The New Yorker, a style which has since been copied by all the publications in the country, with the exception of certain vers libre magazines in Chicago.
$_{MakingitalicsforTheNewYorker,withtheThreeSteppingGoodsallsandJazzlandJackie(inperson)operatingourreciprocating,bi-phaseitalicizer,aninventionofourMr.EustaceTilley,Director-GeneralofItalicization.Mr.Tilley,whomaybeseenonthereader'sleft,conceivedthenotionofitalicsafterthreeScotchesandaBenedictinetakenintheshadowoftheleaningtowerofPisa}$
Thirteen floors below may be found the Emphasis Department, where particular stress is laid on certain words by bending them sideways in the form of italics. Words which are to be "em- phasized," as it is called, are set up in vises and hammered with steel mallets by a staff of Editors, under the personal direction of Mr. E. Tilley. They are then returned to the Editorial Department, where they are employed in cases of high indignation or French idioms.
The twenty-fourth floor is occupied by the Margin and Open Space Department, long a prominent feature of The New Yorker. These Margins are packed in twelve inch lengths, about three-quarters of an inch wide, and are placed on either side of each page of copy in this magazine. Sixty thousand acres in Wyoming and Montana are owned by The New Yorker, and great carloads of these open spaces are shipped daily to this Department, in care of the Margin Department director, our Mr. Eustace Tilley.
Paragraphs are prepared in the Paragraph Department on the fifty-ninth floor, under the direction of Mr. Eustace Tilley. They are usually cut in assorted lengths, to give variety to the make-up of each page, and are employed generally throughout the book except in the illustrations.
Odds and ends of paragraphs that remain over from each issue are gathered together and used on the opening page of the book under the title "Notes and Comment."
The Proof Reading Department of The New Yorker is located on the top floor, since so perfect is the system on this paper that typographical errors never ocur in its ifficient organization In fact, in all the forty-eight years that the Proof Reading system has been organized by our Mr. Eustace Tilley, the only mistake thot has been known to occur was when the slugs of a two-liner were inadvertently reversed, and the inverted joke appeared as folows:
"What is an optimist, Pop?"
"A man who thinks he can make it in par."
This ludicrous error was long bandied about the office, and has become known to tradition as "That Old Optimist Joke."
Indeed, with this efficient system of proof reading in vogue, the reader may see that so perfe a magaxine is well worth the price of a year's subscription, or $500.

## OPERATING THE PNEUMATIC AIR-TUBE5

FEW of the millions of daily visitors to the vast New Yorker plant are aware that the interior of the building is nothing more or less than an intricate network of pneumatic tubes which circulate constantly the various parts of the magazine from one department to another, up and down the seventy-four floors of the structure, until they finally join together to form the weekly issue of The New Yorker. Yet so vital is this work to the making of a magazine that it has been placed entirely in the capable hands of our Mr. Eustace Tilley, who attends to all the details himself.
Of course, in the olden days, when there was only one Department (called "The New Yorker") the staff could keep in touch with himself without even raising his voice, and the job of assembly was negligible. However, as the organization grew, it became necessary to devise some way of gathering together the products of these various Departments. After unsuccessful attempts to teach a team of bloodhounds to fetch and carry (abandoned in June, 1894, when a nearsighted bloodhound carried Mr. Lewis Carroll through the entire building under the impression he was a piece of advertising copy), Mr. Tilley devised the first inter-office tube, When Mr. Eustace Tilley (in the background, from left to right) was the youngest living Inter-office Memo Dispatch Engineer, such unfortunate incidents as the one depicted often took place. Here toe see Mr. Lewis Carroll, mistaken for a sheaf of MSS., being rudely carried from office to office, by Marathon, the nearsighted bloodhound message bearer, whose subsequent participation in the Aix to Ghent a fair is said to have inspired the Pulitzer Awards containing the germ of the idea in vogue to-day.
The original tube was a clumsy enough affair, about four feet in diameter and almost twice as wide across the middle ; and since there had been as yet no method devised of making the copies move along inside the tube, it was found necessary to build all the tubes straight up and down, so that the issues could be dropped through them by gravity. At this time all the offices of The New Yorker were on the same floor, and the impracticality of this plan soon became apparent.
Mr. Tilley and a bright copy boy on the staff, named T. Edison, now set their heads together to devise a better way of moving the copies from one department to another; and as a result the latter invented the Elastic Method (later called the "phonograph," and patented by young Edison himself). A long piece of rubber elastic was stretched through the tube from one department to the next, so that when a magazine was fastened to this rubber band, it would snap to its destination like lightning. This method was never popular with the employees, however, owing to the inconvenience of having to crawl all the way back through the tube with the elastic band in their teeth, in order to reload the darned thing again.
The idea of a Pneumatic Air-Tube occurred to Mr. Tilley while he was practising on his saxophone one evening. Acting upon this hunch at once, five thousand glass blowers were imported from Stockholm, Sweden, and employed to operate this vast network of tubes. By placing one end of the tube in their mouths and simply breathing in and out, copy is moved about at a furious rate. In fact, when one of these glass blowers inadvertently sneezed recently, the magazine was printed two days ahead of time.
As an example of their efficient work, these glass blowers oftentimes will draw in by suction at one breath as many as a dozen circulation coupons, similar to the one always to be found somewhere about the magazine, which have all been carefully filled out by readers and returned with Five Dollars, which is just the price of a year's subscription.
Although the impulse to pun cannot be entirely suppressed in an organization of the magnitude of The New Yorker, it is nevertheless a fact worthy of honorable mention that these people are not called "suckers."
$_{OurmovingpicturereviewerisheredepicteddashingoffadirtycrackwiththeassistanceofMustapha,apropattendant.Beforehimareseveralsymbolicdolls,aningeniousgalaxydesignedbyourMr.EustaceTilley(whomaybeseeninthebackground)forthepurposeofreducingthementallevelofacontributortoalowenoughplaneforsuchatask.Afterhismeniallabor,themoviereviewerwillbeservedpatedefoisgrasandwatermelonsandallowedtoplaywithourgoldfish}$

## THE CAR EOF OUR CONTMBUTOIU

BETWEEN the front and rear advertising sections of The New Yorker the careful reader may occasionally discover inserted whole pages of text and illustration, a policy in which The New Yorker differs radically from many of our publications. The writers and artists whose work illuminates these pages live amid ideal surroundings, since the staff realizes that only by keeping its contributors contented and happy may their best work be secured.
Twenty-five acres of rolling terraces on the roof of The New Yorker's mammoth building are devoted exclusively to our contributors, and are built on the general plan of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, only bigger. Attractive bungalows are scattered throughout this model suburb, where brilliantly colored macaws and parrots scream from the tropical treetops, nightingales operate all day long under Kleig lights, and sunrises are held at ten o'clock every morning for the convenience of the poetically inclined. Twenty turbine engines turn a gigantic waterfall, constructed on the general plan of Niagara, and twelve gross of goldfish are emptied daily into the lake at the foot. In addition, a handsome Country Club has been erected, where the members may purchase their gin conveniently. This Garden Spot is called "Florida" after a Florida, said to be a similar real estate development, though conducted on a smaller scale.
The social life of this community is closely supervised by our Mr. Eustace Tilley, Superintendent of Recreation for The New Yorker. Staff luncheons are served here three times a day, and wit and brilliant conversation sparkle across the festive board. Every effort is made to keep their minds free from financial worries and mundane matters. The staff presents the contributors annually with a year's subscription to The New Yorker, worth the exact total of all their contributions laid side by side for fifty-two weeks, or five dollars.
It is but natural that Inspiration should visit frequently in such an environment; and as a precaution against such an emergency, each contributor's room contains a single operating desk and a large blunt instrument like a typewriter. In the event of an attack, he is placed immediately under an anaesthetic, and delivers his contribution into the capable hands of the head surgeon. During his convalescence he learns whether he has just had an illustration, a poem, or a rejection slip; and sometimes to his surprise and delight he finds that he is the proud father of a whole series, like "The Making of a Magazine."
Special Departments receive personal attention from Mr. Tilley. For example, the dramatic critic is fed daily on raw eggs and olive oil, in order to secure the lustre and smooth finish of his dramatic reviews. Flutes lull the music critic to his slumbers, he awakens to the sound of distant chimes, and typewrites his musical criticisms on a piano. In order to spare the book editor from wading through the modern fiction, he receives only the covers of the book he is to review, the inside of each copy being filled instead with delicious bonbons. The motion picture reviewer writes his criticisms in a large sunny playroom, equipped with rocking horses and alphabet blocks, in order to adjust his mind to the mental level necessary for his work.
Although these elaborate arrangements have been made to maintain a regular staff, it must not be assumed that outside contributors are not welcomed to The New Yorker. On the contrary, their contributions are eagerly solicited, the most acceptable contribution being a five-dollar bill, clipped or pinned to that coupon which is always to be found somewhere on a page nearby.
Proving that a new subscriber to The New Yorker is born every minute. Herein may be seen one of the newest, with eyes wfide open and arms eagerly outstretched to receive his first copy of the magazine

## THE NEW YORKER'S CHART ROOM

IT is estimated roughly that a new subscriber is added to The New Yorker every minute. For ex- ample, although there were only 8,657,- 000 subscribers when this first para- graph began, yet before it is finished there will be at least 8,657,001. This only goes to show how important this first paragraph is, since it has already raised the actual number of subscribers to this magazine to 8,657,002. One moment. 8,657,003*
With a subscription list that increases at such a terrific rate, it is apparent that the task of keeping any adequate record of . the increasing subscribers must be a staggering one. Add to this the enormous circulation of The New Yorker in foreign countries (the dis- tribution among visiting New Yorkers in Paris last Summer being well over four million) and you may form some conception of the work of Mr. Eustace Tilley, The New Yorker's represen- tative in charge of Circulation and Sta- tistics.
In a gigantic Chart Room, covering an entire floor of The New Yorker Building at 25 West Forty-fifth Street, or eight city blocks, an accurate record
(* In fact, by the time you have read this foot-note it will be 8,657,004.â€” Ed.)
is kept minute by minute of the increase in circulation. The rise and fall of subscriptions, closings in the foreign market, surplus copies, and weather conditions along the Middle Atlantic seaboard are all indicated on what is perhaps the most elaborate graph chart in existence. (It is over 700,000 square feet in area and is played with small colored chips, like Parcheesi.)
An explanation of the operation of this gigantic graph chart may show how detailed is the organization of Mr. Til- ley's Department. As soon as a sub- scription to The New Yorker arrives, a red plug is thrust in the lower right- hand corner, under "Ice Water," and the second button from the left is ad- vanced two inches and the waist taken in. At the same time a line is drawn from A diagonally to F. This, of course, necessitates shifting the entire chart three inches higher, and building a new ceiling. Forty-three experts now set out to plot the hyperbola, which they presently discover to have risen con- siderably, followed by light showers and clearing. The short thick line (M- N) advances forward from this point to L, where it disappears behind a cloud, and a dotted line indicates the course of the ball to the 30-yard line,
whese it is recovered by Princeton's backfield. Meantime, the hyperbola disguised as Mr. Punch, advances rap- idly to the highest point (Pike's Peak) where it halts and looks about. Or just about. The market closes at par.
This chart is now sent downstairs to be framed and hung in the Editor's of- fice, along with the subscription coupon, in order to keep the circulation records accurate. Mr. Tilley puts the five-dollar bill in his pocket.
In addition, in order to bring the problem home to the public, a huge ex- hibit is maintained night and day on lower Broadway, where the Aquitania is propped up on end, beside the Wool- worth Tower and an enormous ear of corn representing the annual output of
the state of Kansas, in order to show clearly how the weekly circulation of The New Yorker would compare in size if the copies had been piled one atop another, confusing traffic even further.
The New Yorker is constantly seeking to regulate its subscription list, and is rapidly enlisting its readers in this work. In order to simplify mat- ters Mr. Tilley has offered a standard circulation coupon on a neighboring page which may be filled out and re- turned with $5.00, making the reader a Subscriber.
As a special offer, readers filling out and returning ten of these coupons may order The New Yorker sent to nine of their friends as Christmas presents.
Mr. Eustace Tilley, General Manager of Circulation Morale, explains how to make a field
goal with a five spot when your partner holds ace, queen, and deuce in the trump suit,
and the ticker misspells Locarno
Simon Legree-ed by our Mr. Eustace Tilley, these chas- tened office boys are mis- takenly carrying out his hat among the ash trays which alone mark the spot where a subscription conference (not to be confused with a sub- scription dance) has been held
XVII
THE
WEEKLY CONFERENCE*
4N example of the efficiency and L\ business-like organization of a -L jL great magazine like The New Yorker may be found in the weekly conferences which are held daily in the office of the Editor, consuming a total of eight hours, or 960 cigars. Reports of all these meetings are carefully re- corded by our Mr. Eustace Tilley, the Secretary of The New Yorker, and a copy is presented to each member, who places it carefully with a lot of other papers in a black leather brief-case,
which is left on the rack in the smoking- car that evening.
This Conference Method was estab- lished by The New Yorker in 1885, in order to meet the problem of avoid- ing people who came to see the Editor, and has since spread to most phases of Big Business. The New Yorker Sys- tem involves two styles of Conferences: In the first case, a group of three or eight men is seated around a long ma- hogany table and does not want to be disturbed. In this event, the Office
Boy says they are "In Conference.'* In the second case, the Editor is seated around a long mahogany table and does not want to be disturbed. In this event the Office Boy says he is "In Confer- ence."
Let us say that a typical Conference, similar to those held every afternoon, meets in the office of the Editor to dis- cuss the question of establishing a standard price for a year's subscrip- tion to The New Yorker. The Editor, who has brought a large bundle of pa- pers with him, opens the Conference by announcing that the subject is: "A Year's Subscription to The New York- er: How Much?" "The question," he says, running through a sheaf of car- bons, "of a year's subscription is . . ." He hesitates, reading over a statistical report and laying it aside. "I mean, to The New Yorker, is . . ." and here he searches through a pile of books, and then in his pockets, and then under the desk.
"I know where you can get it for six dollars a bottle," confides the Business Manager, leaning across the table.
"Is the bottle empty?" asks the Art Editor skeptically (for good reason).
". . .a year's subscription to The New Yorker," continues the Editor, on his hands and knees.
"... heard a pretty good one about the Marquise," begins the Motion Pic- ture Editor, lighting his cigar.
"Well, I can't seem to find that pa- per," interrupts the Editor, emerging from the wreck of the desk with an axe in his hand and dusting off his coat, "but I should like to appoint a Commit- tee to meet and consider this question."
Thus, the following afternoon the
Committee on a Year's Subscription to The New Yorker, as it is called, gath- ers in the office of the Editor, and the Chairman calls the meeting to order. "By the way," he asks, glancing about, "where is H. M?"
"H. M. can't make it today," offers T. S.; "his wife is laid up with bron- chitis."
"Bad time of year for bronchitis," smiles R. S., tracing concentric circles on his blotter.
"Personally, I never get bronchitis," says J. T., "I always get red, and then I peel."
"I never peel," replies R. S., "I just tan; but T. S. peels something terri- ble. ..."
"Well, if H. M. isn't coming," de- cides the Chairman, "I don't think we have a quorum or something, and so I should like to appoint a Sub-Committee to meet and consider this Subscription Question."
Consequently the Sub-Committee duly meets the next day and appoints a Sub-Sub-Committee, which meets and appoints a Special Committee, which meets and turns the whole thing over to a Committee of One, which meets and appoints Mr. Tilley.
And Mr. Tilley, glancing over the pages of The New Yorker the follow- ing morning, stumbles across the little coupon always seen somewhere about the magazine and discovers that the price of a year's subscription is just $5.00, thus settling the problem once and for all and effectively demonstrat- ing the value of this Conference Meth- od, which has put Big Business where it is today. And, by the way, where is it?
Mr. Eustace Tilley ingeniously evolved the name "New York" for his real estate develop- ment on Manhattan Island, after discarding "Coral Gables" and "Chicago" from a, magazine called The New Yorker. He is herewith shown christening the bow of the Flatiron Building in the presence of a left to right committee as follows: Columbus, Hylan, Metternich, Napoleon, Ney, Oregorey VII (E. Tilley), Poe, Washington, Caesar (J.),
L. Erikson
XVIII
HÂ£ MODEL VILLAGE
PERHAPS it has occurred to the careful reader, or readers, that the employment of so many hun- dreds of thousands of workers in every phase of this great industry of printing The New Yorker must raise, in time, the question of housing these employees within convenient distance of The New Yorker plant. Mr. Eustace Tilley, the magazine's special agent in charge of personnel and staff problems, fore- seeing this difficulty with characteristic thoroughness, bought Manhattan Island in 1893 ; and there he planned and erect- ed The New Yorker's Model Village to house these workers and their fami- lies, probably the largest municipality of its kind.
In this titanic city every effort has been made to provide for the comfort and happiness of its inhabitants. Seven hundred and forty theaters have been located through the city at strategic points, to provide pleasure and enter- tainment for the inhabitants; and al- though few of the citizens can afford to buy tickets for any of these entertain- ments, yet the buildings add distinctly
to the appearance of the city, and, any- way, the inhabitants may amuse them- selves by looking at the pictures in the lobbies. In addition, a number of news- papers are published for the edification of the citizens, containing puzzles, col- umns, pictures and comic strips, which enable the readers to keep their minds free from the coal strike and other an- noying problems of the day. Parks have been established also for recreational purposes, and may occasionally be seen through high iron fences, provided they have not been torn up for public build- ings.
Transportation in this Model Village was long a problem with Mr. Tilley, but was solved by the invention of the Subway, which rendered transportation impossible and thus effectively removed the problem altogether. The further question of parking cars in the con- gested downtown districts was like- wise efficiently disposed of by setting aside every Sunday for this purpose, upon which day the citizens may drive downtown and park their cars wherever they please for twenty-four hours. Pe-
destrians, of course, are illegal in this Model City; and anyone seen walking across the street is liable to a fine of $5.00 or a year's subscription to The New Yorker, or both.
Many other advantages have been in- stituted by Mr. Tilley. Building is carried on night and day, and buildings are torn down as soon as they are fin- ished to make room for new buildings, in order that the busy citizens may never lack for something to watch from office-windows or street-corners. Fur- thermore, the danger of crime and hold- ups is greatly minimized, owing to the zeal of the Police Commissioner in pub- lishing graphic detective stories that frighten potential criminals into becom- ing decent, law-abiding citizens, making money by boot-legging instead.
The New Yorker has not failed to make adequate provision in this Model Village for those who have become aged and infirm in the services of the maga- zine. All such employees, who are ren- dered useless for any real labor, are
sent to a public institution known as City Hall, where they fill the posts of Mayor, Comptroller, Aldermen, etc., the responsibility of their position de- pending on the extent of their general incapacity. John Hylan, for years a worker on one of The New Yorker's largest presses, the Interboro, has been maintained for eight years in this Home, and is being sent to Florida some time this Winter on a one-way ticket.
The name of this Model Village was long in doubt; but after some thought Mr. Tilley decided to call it New York, a clever combination of the first seven letters of the name of this magazine (The New Yorker). Although "New York" is today the second largest city in the world, with a population well over four million, it is significant that every one of its citizens is actively con- nected with this magazine, most of them being engaged in contributing $5.00 an- nually â€” the best way of becoming a recognized citizen of "New York."
1. The origi- nal New York-
building, de- stroyed by fire in 1868. In this humble structure on the outskirts of Harlem, James G. Blaine printed the first issue of The New Yorker in 1867.
2. A scene in the vast New Yorker build- ing. Sumptuous waiting room equipped to accommodate contributors while waiting to see the Editor.
3. Bertha, the world's largest printing press, located in the basement o f The New Yorker building. This giant ma- chine is capable of turning out 3,000,000 copies daily, a small fraction of the weekly distribution.
4. A group of The New Yorker's build- ings. A bird's-eye view of the largest Print- ing Plant in the world.
XIX
HE BUILDING
k S our little tour through the vast Z\ organization of The New J- â– *- Yorker draws to a close at last, it is fitting that we pause for a bird's-eye view of the great New Yorker Building at 25 West Forty-fifth Street, an edifice which stands unique among the architectural wonders of the world. In fact, there is said to be no other building like it anywhere on earth.
Fifty years ago the plans for this great edifice were completed and the site chosen. The laying of the cornerstone, January 1, 1876, was an event still discussed in New York social circles, and was preceded by a week of celebration and dancing in the streets. All work was abandoned on the morning of the event, the anniversary of which has subsequently been turned into a national holiday called "New Year's Day," a contraction of "New Yorker's Day." It is perhaps significant that in the midst of this celebration, during a speech by a rising young banker named Otto Kahn, young Mrs. Terwilliger Tilley, wife of the Chairman of the Cornerstone Committee, gave birth to a baby son named Eustace, afterwards prominently associated with this organization.
In this giant structure is housed the equipment for turning out the 8,657,000 weekly issues of this magazine, a feat unparalleled in modern journalism. Here are located the paper-mills, the ink-reservoirs and the giant printingpresses, which we have examined more closely in our previous excursions and which we have neither time nor space nor any goshdarned intention of going all over again. Every convenience and luxury is carefully provided in this Model Factory, the old Madison Square Garden having been bought from Mr. Rickard and rebuilt brick for brick in a corner of the vast recreation room. In addition the original Hippodrome tank has been installed as a swimming pool; and workers are busy tearing up 42nd Street for use in our corridors. Central Park is being negotiated for.
Amid these sumptuous surroundings the staff of The New Yorker remains modest and unostentatious, totally unaffected by the magnitude of The New
Yorker Building. In fact, these simple people actually attempt to conceal the fact that this magazine is printed on such a huge scale; and so successful are their efforts that the casual reader, examining an issue of The New Yorker, might never guess the efficient organization behind it.
Finally, in response to numerous requests (most of them from the author), the editors have consented to reveal the fact that this Series has been the work of Mr. Corey Ford. Acting on an original suggestion by Mr. Ilea Irvin, Mr. Ford was consigned to conduct the read- ers on this tour through The New Yorker plant. In this work he was aided by Mr. Johan Bull, whose illustrations have done so much to clarify the explanation of the making of the magazine; and in reward for their services Mr. Ford and Mr. Bull have each received a year's subscription to The New Yorker, which it may be pointed out for the last time, is worth exactly $5. In conclusion the editors also wish to state that Mr. Eustace Tilley is not married.
XX
THE ANNIVERSARY OF A GREAT MAGAZINE
EIGHTEEN THIRTY-SEVEN â€” Nineteen Twenty-six ! Just fifty years. A half-century of progress !
Always The New Yorker has steered its helm straight through the shifting seas of events, let the chips fall where they may. It has stood for all that is fine in American life; it has upheld the principles of Washington and Stephen Decatur and Dr. Cadman. Such a course calls for honesty; it calls for courage; it calls for truth and it calls for faith and it calls for his fiddlers three. Bravo, New Yorker !
As one who has been associated with every aspect of The New Yorker since it was founded I take delight in looking back upon that Manhattan Island of
The burning of the Public Library in
1903, a calamity which was avoided by
The New Yorker's vigorous editorial
policy
The first cover of The New Yorker, posed by Mr. Eustace Tilley himself
the first issue, which was printed in pencil on September 14, 1867. What changes have taken place! In those halcyon days, for example, a stage-line started at the Public Library (destroyed by fire in 1889, owing to a carelessly-tossed cigarette), circled Bryant Park to avoid the construction which had just started, crossed over to Broadway and ran down James G. Blaine, after which it was discontinued. Blaine was later rebuilt and turned into a Child's Res- taurant; and it was here that Harry K. Thaw shot Stanford White, who built Grant's Tomb. The tomb was de- molished the following year, owing to the discovery that Grant hadn't died then.
This, of course, was before the Subway had been heard of; and even if it had it wouldn't have been believed. New Yorkers were not so credulous in those days, and people used to go about from one place to another in horsecars, or old-fashioned barouches, which could not go as fast as the modern taxis and which consequently got there in about half the time. The first elevated train ran along Sixth Avenue from Tony Pastor's (later Carnegie Hall) to the Hudson River, now demolished. At this time the Times Square theatre district consisted of a few scattered shanties (later Nedick Orange Booths), and the parking problem was practically nil. "Abie's Irish Rose" was still run- ning then, and another bad feature was the mosquitoes.
It is hard to associate this simple picture of early New York life with the great, throbbing metropolis of today; but the changes which have taken place are inextricably woven with the history of The New Yorker. As New York has increased, so has The New Yorker grown from that first modest issue â€” stamped crudely on the back of any old scrap of paper that happened to be blowing about the office, printed by someone sitting down hard on the press; and delivered by the editor on his own bicycle. Contrast these facts with the modern printing press, capable of turning out 8,657,000 issues an hour. Contrast them, for that matter, with "The Making of a Magazine" series, and see if I haven't simply used a lot of old stuff over again.
In this half-century of progress, onward, upward, forward, The New Yorker has labored constantly for the good of New York. One of the most important works which The New Yorker has accomplished has
Compliments of a ftitnh
The New Yorker's first advertisement, printed November 7, 1857
Andrew Johnson
The famous profile of Andrew Johnson, in an early issue, which resulted in his impeachment in 1843
been the enforcement of prohibition in this city. By steady campaigning, editorials and cartoons, The New Yorker has succeeded in cleaning up bootlegging, preventing the illicit sale of liquors in cabarets, and putting a stop once and for all to rum-running in the harbor. Today New York is pointed to with pride by the Prohibition Enforcement Bureau in Washington as an example of a temperate, lawabiding community. In fact, the few bottles of liquor on sale in New York today may be laid at the door of The New Yorker. Ask for Charlie.
This is a history of accomplishment of which The New Yorker may be justly proud; for it is safe to say that no other paper can claim a similar record. Now, upon the occasion of this anniversary, we face another year. What, we ask, will be the result of this coming twelve-month? What will these fifty-two weeks be worth ? What will be their value, in cold dollars and cents, to each reader of The New Yorker?
Probably, at a quick estimate, just five dollars, or the price of another annual subscription. â€” Corey Ford.
The New Yoeker's
Mr. Eustace Tilley,
himself
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1969, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 54 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse