The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1855-11-01
The Old Village Printing Office.
BY Il. T. TAYLOR.

anu tnat was stage house, Me stage
house, where, once day, the yellow, mud
bespattered stage rocked up and brought
up to, and the we'll conditioned boniface
came shutting out from the grated corner
in the bar room, like on over-fed old spi.
der, opened the stage coach door and let
$ out the hungry passengers. They were
always hungry when they got there, for
breakfast was just ready for southern en-
igrants and dinner for northern; but then
the landlord was not an old spider, but q
very joyial, pleasant sort of man, who
made every body feel as much at home
as he was, and nothing more home like
could be imagined; and so, very well to
do did be get, at two shillings meal
So much for the old village, for here
We are just now passing an orchard, and
there, with broader pbylactery of tan
bark, is the printing Office, whence was is
sued weekly in olden times, the Black
Rtrer Ga1ette. The Office, low, white
building, once tenanted by a lawyer, who
had gone up to higher court than any
they have organized yet on earth, stood
next the church So they were, for once,
side by side, the pulpit and the press;
and no body 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 Eve small fingers. In
cline your ear, delicate reader, it is the
deals! Not he who wears but one boot,
and is disagreeably redolant of birthstone,
but the begrimmed urchin in shirt sleeves,
just creeping through the broken pickets
of the orchard fence, with apples in each
hand, and one in his mouth, followed in
his fight by something bearing strik-
ing resemblance to brick-bat.
But here We are. The walls are cob
webed and dusty; the windows are cur
tanned with newspapers;a very dim lam
tern to hold great deal of light Click,
click; the footsteps of type, and there in
the corner is the editor, publisher, pro-
prietor and printer, "setting up an edi-
torial from very queer old case, Click,
click; there's pale young man busy with
a death" Died, and so he goes slowly
Oh as though he were actually following
the bier. But then a death was a very
rare thing, very rare in the village, and
round in the woods, and it was worth
pondering over. True, everybody knew
it already, but it must 60 into the paper,
nevertheless, for there was somebody or
other, that had gone out into the "Gen-
essee country" that 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
handbills; what wonderful, "Selims" th at
the man with short coat and long whip,
could hardly hold; what "great sales" of
small articles; what gay coaches, riding
on the top of cloud, the four in hand
all running away, and the "nine inside"
as merry as punch.
But not picture of railroad, or a reap
er, or steamboat. A strange old Office
in those days.
But there in further corner stands a
square frame of heavy timber, like huge
loom. It is loom, such as they wove
thought on: it is the old "Ramage Press. "
Its huge lever, its lazy platen, its pond
erous tympan, its great ink balls, its
creaking. groaniDg mechanism-there it
stands in all its rudeness, the greatest tri-
umph of this or any other age. A pair
of tin sockets swung up by wire above
the dingy engine, bearing each "brief
CANDLE" were the Castor and Pollux of
the place. In the corner in the dark, stood
a solitary keg of ink; not great way off,
four reams of a very grayish blue pa"
per, but the proprietor was passing rich
at less than forty pounds year. 1t is
publication day, and editor, pale appren-
tice, and dingy devil are in an active
state of unrest. The editor writes, and
says "we," and sour readers"-he has
two hundred and ffty-and then the
printer sets type, and then the publisher
looks over the "form, and then the press
man places it on the press, and then
"comes the tag of war" 1t is pull and
repeat, pull again and again repeat, and
the ''inside" comes of, sheet after sheet,
with the gravity of SO many elephants;
the candles get briefer and DINNER, but
the two hundred and fiftieth is off at last,
and they all, editor, publisher, printer,
and pressman get into the same coat and
beneath the same hat, and leave the dew
il to fold up the papers and sweep out
the Office.
Where then were your compound lev
ers, your glittering cylinders, your faith
full rollers, your painting furnaces,
your press, instinct with life and energy,
that Jared on like chariot over whole
highways of white paper in an hourl-
/ Where were the busy "jours" and the
editorial corps! Where the steamers and
the railway trains and the telegraphs,
painting and skrieking and flashing, to
transmit that papers contents to the
worlds dim, cloudy ends!
The morning comes, and the inky imp
of yesterday, INDUCES in a clean face,
his unkempt locks are out of snarl; he is
transformed into Mercury. Forth he
goes, packages of papers beneath each
arm, in bis capacity of carrier-boy. He
is none of your brisk, pert fellows, of the
now w-a-day order, but very meek is he in