Thibodaux minerva. [volume] (Thibodaux, La.) 18??-1858, 1855-10-20
The Old Village Printing Office,
BY Il. F. TAYLOR

and that was an Inn So-and-sOS Inn ; the otheT
was 'down street" and that was stage house,
the stage house where, once day, the yellow,
mud-bespattered stage rocked up and brought
to- and the well-conditioned boniface came
shutfllng out from the grated corner in the bar
room like an oyer-fed old spider, opened the
stage coach door and let out the hungry passen-
gers. They were always hungry when they got
there, for breakfast was just ready for southern
emigrants, and dinner for northern; but then
the landlord was not an old spider, but n very
jevial pleasant sort of man, who made every
body feel as much at home as he was, and
nothing more homelke could be imagined. and
SO, very well -to-do did he get, at two shilings
q meal.
So much for the old village, for here we are,
just now passing an orchard, and there, with
a broader phylactery of tan-bark, is the print
ing office, whence was issued weekly in olden-
times, the Black River Gazette The office a
low, white building, once tenanted by lawyer,
who had gone up to higher court than any
they have organized yeton EARTH stood next the
church So they were, for once, side-by side,
the pulpit and the press and nobody has
learned to turn out such enginery from forge
and foundry, even to this day. We enter
there is ink on the door, the print of five small
the deuTs! Not he who wears but one boot,
and is disagreeably redolent of birthstone, but
the begrimed urchn in shirt-sleeves, just creep
ing through the broken pickets of the orchard
fence, with apples in each hand, and one in his
mouth, followed in his flight by something bear
ing a striking resemblance to q brick-bat
But here we are. The walls are cobwebbed
and dusty; the windows are curtaned with
newspapers very dim lantern to hold great
deal of light. Click, click: the footsteps of
type, and there in the corner is the editor, pub
Usher, proprietor and printer, "setting up y
an editorial from very queer old case. Click,
click; there's pale young man, busy with a
''death." Died, and SO he goes slowly on as
though he were actually following the bier.
But then a death was very rare thing, very
rare in the village, and round in the woods, and
it was worth bordering over. True, every
body knew it already, but it must 60 into the
paper nevertheless, for there was somebody or
other, that had gone out into the "Genesee
country" that had loved the living and SO the
paper must follow him away there, if it could,
that he might mourn the dead.
Wonderful decorations they are upon the
walls; what marvellous borders to the hand
bills what wonderful 'sSelims," that the man
with a short coat and long whip, could hardly
hold what &C great sales" of small articles !;
what gay coaches, riding on the top of cloud,
the fourth baud all running away, and the
ssnine inside" as merry as Punch.
But not picture of railroad, or reaper,
or steamboats, A strange old Office in those
old days.
But there in further corner stands square
frame of heavy timber, like huge loom. 1t as
loom, such as they wove thought on; 1t is the
old "Ramage Press" Its huge lever, its lazy
platen, its ponderous tympan, its great ink
balls, its creaking groaning mechanism--there
it stands in all its rudeness, the greatest
triumph of this or any other age. pair of
tin sockets swung up by Il wire above the
dingy engine, bearing each "brief candle, y
were the Castor and Pollux of the place. In
the corner, in the dark, stood solitary keg of
ink; not a great way off. four reams of a very
grayish blue paper, but then the proprietor was
s'passing rich at less than forty pounds a
apprentice and dingy devil are in an active
state of unrest. The editor writes, and says
sswe," and g our readers he has two hundred
and ffty-and then the printer sets type, and
then the publisher looks over the " FORM" and
then the pressman places it on the pross, and
then comes the tug of war;" 1t is pull and
repeat, pull again and again repeat, and the
"insiden comes of. sheet after sheet, with the
gravity of so many elephants the candles get
briefer and DINNER, but the two hundred and
fftieth is off at last, and they all, editor, pub
Usher, printer and pressman get into the same
coat and beneath the same hat. and leave the
devil to fold up the papers and sweep cut the
office
Where then were your compound levers, your
cljtteripc cylinders, your faithful rollers, your
painting furnaces, your press, instict with life
and energy, that Jared on like a chariot over
whole highways of white paper in an hour?
Where are the busy "jours," and the editorial
corps? Where the steamers and the railway
trains and the teegraphs, painting, and shrek
ing and flashing. to transmit that papers con-
tents to the worlds dim, cloudy ends?
The morning comes, and the inky imp of yes
tdrday, INDUCES in clean face his unkempt
locks are out of snarl he is transformed into a
Mercury. Forth he goes, packages of papers
beneath each arm, in his capacity of carrier
boy. He is none of your brisk, pert fellows, of
the now-a-day order, but very meek is he in
deed; and when the squire speaks out to him
strong and hearty, "good morning, my boy, !"
he holds down his head and deposits the answer
in his bosom, as if it were very delicate thing,
and not yet able to fly. Like death, he visits
every house, and his burden grows lighter as
he proceeds. He does not chuck the papers, as
they do now, over the gate and under the fence,
but decently and demurely places it folded and
damp in the hand of somebody commissioned
to receive it. But he doesn't ring" for there
is nothing to ring in all the town, except the
church bell, that the Doctor brought home in
his coulter" one day, from Utica or some
where thereaway.
His rounds are soon made; meanwhile a
sorry sort of horse-an editors horse, you
knows blowing solitary oat about very
large manger, the last survivor Of very large
family. Pretty soon Rosinante is led forth, and
q pair Of saddlebags, distended to the suffocat-
ing point, is brought out, followed by the Mer-
curry and no devil, with his pockets plethoric
with dough- nuts-what has become of that old
fashioned twisted luxury ?-and a tin horn
tethered to button-hole by bit of green
string. 1t is with sort of sheepish impor-
lance that he mounts by the aid of the pro-
prietor, and wends his way, as they were very
fond of saying scout in the country" as if the
old village was not positively lost in the very
bosom of it.
And so he went, his horn resounding through
the solitudes, and he as happy as knight fresh
from tournament. And that was the "N. E.
W. ST. the Neacs Of those old days. But what
there was in the Gazette, and who they were
that read it. must be passed over in the silence
ike that that now, alas hangs like great
wing over the most of them-the fairest, and