Mineral Point tribune. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1854-1858, 1855-10-16
The OLD VILLAGE PRINTING OFFICE.
BY II T TAYLOR.

and SOS inn the other was down street.
and that was stage house, the stag,
house where, once day, the yellow mut
bespattered stage rocked up and brough
to, and the well-conditioned boniface ca mt
! shuffling out from the grated corner il
the bar-room, like an over fed old spider
opened the stage coach door and let out
the hungry passengers. They were al
ways hungry when they got there, for
breakfast was just ready for southern emf
grants. and dinner for northern but then
the landlord was not an old spider, but a
very jovial pleasant sort of man, who
made everybody feel as much at home as
he was, and nothing more homelike could
be imagined, aud so, very wellto do did
be get, at two shillings a meal.
So much for the old village, for here we
are, just now passing an orchard, and
there with broader phylactery of tan bark.
is the printing Office, whence was issued
weekly in olden times, the Black Rarer
Gazette. The Office low, white build.
ing, once tenanted by lawyer. who had
gone up to higher court than any they
have yet organized on earth. stood next
to 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 or foundry. even to
this day. We enter there is ink on the
door, the print of FIVE small fingers In
cline your ear delicate reader, it is the
deUTS! Not he who wears but one boot,
and is disagreeably redolent of birthstone,
but the begrimed urchin in SHIFT sleeves,
just breaking through the broken pick
cts of the orchard fence, with apples In
each hand, aud one in his mouth. follow
ed in his flight by something bearing
resem blance to a brick bat
But here we are The walls are cob
webbed and dusty the windows are cur
tanned with newspapers very dim Ian
tern to hold great deal of light Click,
Click the footsteps of type, and there
in the corner is the editor, publisher, pre-
proprietor and printer, "setting up an
editorial from very queer old case =
Click, Click there's pale young man,
busy with a death" Died, and so be
goes slowly on, as though he was actually
following the bier. But then death
was very rare thing, vcry rare in the
village aud round in the woods, and it
was worth pondering over. True, every
body knew it already, but it must go in
to the paper, nevertheless, for there was
somebody or other, that had gone out in
to the ''Genessee 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 tc
the handbills what wonderful ''Selins,
that the man with a short coat and long
whip. could hardly hold what great
sales" of small articles; what gay coach
es, riding on the top Of cloud, the four
in hand all running away. and the mine
inside" az merry as Punch.
But not picture of a railroad, or a
reaper, or a steamboat. A strange old
Office in those old days.
But there in a further corner stands a
square frame of heavy timber, like huge
loom. 1t IS loom, such as they wove
thought on; it is the old "Ramage
Press" It's huge yer, its lazy platten,
its ponderous tympan, its great ink balls,
its creakipg, groaning mecha .ism-there
it stands in all its rudeness, the greatest
triumph of this or any other age. A
pair of tin sockets swung up by a wire
above the dingy engine, bearing each q
"brief candle" were the Castor and Pol
lux of the place In the corner, in the
dark, stood solitary keg of ink not g
great way off, four reams of very gayish
blue paper, but the proprietor was 'pas
ing rich" at less than forty pounds year
1t is publication day, aud editor. pale ap
prentice, and dingy devil are in an ac
tive state of unrest The editor writes
and says "we," and ''our readers he
has two hundred and ffty-and the prin
! ter sets type, and then the publishe
looks over the ''form," and then th'
pressman places in on the press, aud the'
':comes the tug of war" 1t is pull am
repeat, pull again aud again repeat, an'
the s.iuside comes off, sheet after sheet
with the gravity Of SO many elephants
the candles get briefer and DINNER, bu
the two hundred and fftieth is off at las
and they all. editor, publisher printer an
pressman get into the same coat and be
meath the same hat, and leave the dew
to fold papers and sweep out the oihce-
Where then were your compound lev
ers, your glitteripg cylanders, your iaitt
full rollers, your painting furnaces, you
a