Semi-weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1852-1853, 1852-02-11
THE PRINTERS.

We wish that all our readers could have been pres
ent with US at the Printers Festival in celebration
of Franklin's birthday. They would have seen as
fine specimen, intellectual, moral, and physical, OF
the of the type, greeted their eyes, They
would have beheld g TYPo' in his giory-his hear,
warm, not with wine, but with cordial hospitality
and genial good fellow ship, doing handsome thing
in handsome way, and evidently as sincere in heart
as polite in manner. And yet, some accounts, we
are glad that the public did NOT witness this festival.
The public are already enough in the dark about
Iypo. without being any farther obfuscated. This
festival would have mystie6 them still more. They
would have imagined that "Iyp0' is sort of Dives,
clad In fine linen, and farng sumptuoUsiy every day
that Albemarle mutton and Old Virginia ham form
the staple of his daily dinner, and picked oysters
and plum cake his regular lunch, whilst every Sun
day Is celebrated with haunch of venison, canvass
pack ducks, turkey with oyster sauce followed by a
dessert of Ice creams cakes, oranges, grapes rasns.
and the like. We need not say that for the public
10 indulge any such fancy would be great folly,
though not much more irrational and monstrous than
some of the receptions of the printers character
and condition which they entertain. 1t is now
supposed that the printer is machine, possess
Ing not much more intelligence and sensbty than
the type In the case that he is the medium throug h
which the sunlight of knowledge Eliminates every
dwelling, but that he neither the light feels
the heat which he conveys. There is also another
cherished delusion common among mankind. 1t is
that printers by peculiar law of nature exempt
ed from the and necessities of other that
they need no clothing for themselves and their fam
LESS that they breakfast and dine air and fog,
/
to them, candles to Tighten them, fuel 10
warm them that they and their families enjoy per-
petua health, knowing nothing of doctors bills. and
that they have souls to be saved, and
quently spared the expense of pew rent Their chill
dren presumed to be their schoolmasters.
When printers die they all to be carried upwards
in chariot of fire, other chariot, which will
obviate the necessity of funeral charges. Such
must be the opinion of the public, for it cannot be
supposed that. if they believe Typo to be man of
like appetites and wants with themselves, many
thousands would refuse to pay him their just dues.
and compel him, through the neg ect and dishonesty
of others, often to pass life of trouble sorrow
and prvation.
But in all soberness, few are called TO endure
such continuous and exhaustfng labor the printer.
Each letter Of the columns upon which your eyes
resting has passed through his hands. He is at
his post from early till midnight. Sun and
storm, and ice, neither vary interrupt-his
duties. During the late bitter weather, the compos-
itors of our office, for example, have sometimes
been up till and two o'clock, and then
walked through the cold night and driving rain one
and sometimes two miles 10 their respective homes,
returning at early hour in the morning. Such
the tolls of the printer; and let say word
as to the moral character of the single fact
will speak volumes this head. In the great State
of New Y ork, whose huge metropolis is becoming
famous for the laxty of its morals for its wealth
and prosperity not single printer has been fol
quarter of century to the State prison at Sing Sing
Richmond Republican.