, 1868-11-27
Women as Printers.

The Rorid undertook the experiment Of
employing women as cOmpOSitors because il
was williog to be at some trouble and ex'
pense for the sake Of giving practical aid tc
the movement for enlarging the sphere o
women's work. The experiment was fairly
tried with results which will be stated fur
ther on.
The increasing business Of the World
made it necessary last May to enlarge both
its composing room and editorial Offices
In the change thea made it was found i'm,
possible TO retain for the occupation of the
fsmSis.comPosilOrs the separate room whiSt
they had filed. For tLis reason, we sought
places elsewhere for the women then in our
employ, retaining only one in a more re.
sponsible position 10 the composing room,
upou whose industry her mother and two
sisters are dependent. and when they had all
obtained other places, ceased for the pres,
ent, with the exception named, to avail our,
selves of the services of that disfranchised
class"
From the beginning to the end of our ex-
pertinent, perhaps one hundred girls were
employed at the case. OF these, less than
half dozen could set type when they were
first received. Some of them became toler'
able compositors and are now making fair
wages at book work The majority of them
with every opportunity to learn, and with
better payment on the whole for all they did
than our men received for similar work
never reached an equal skill, nor earned SC
much as they The moment they were
tried by the simple test of so much pay for
60 much composition, which all male com
positors undergo, their earnings fell far below
the average Of the earnings of the men. They
we're required for the most part to work only
in the day time only once or twice we're
their services required at night. They work.
ed as many days in the week as men, but
could none of them work as maOy hours a
day. Seven or eight hours were more than
sufficient to tax their siren 9Th.
Clean composition was next to an impossi.
bility with all of them in the first instance,
and the correction of their matter they
shirked, if possible, and did badly when it
could not be shirked. Yet they were gener.
ally favored with the more legible copy,
and were under little stress as to time. To
the setting of reprint that is, printed copy
these remarks apply.
lllegible manuscript they were unable to
decipher. The majority of persons write more
or less illegibly; but the majority of that
majority write with -uDiformity-- is,
their manuscript Is obscure in the same man
ner, with the same letter or combination Of
letters. The same pen tracks do service al
ways in conveying the same syllables Ru,
fus ChOate had chirography VIGOROUSLY
bad and illegbie. 1t differed from clear and
legible manuscript more widely than almost
any man of his time But it differed uni
formly-the same differences in the same
words Therefore one had only TO learn his
system, and bis manuscript became as legi-
BILE as the better system from which we all
depart more or less. All good compositOrs
learn to read illegible manuscript, and they
learn, it by discerning these uuiformities,
assisted by the subject, the context, etc.
The women whom we have employed never
made any progress in this direction. IlIeg-
ible manuscript to them remained illegible
From the context and the subject they got
no assistance-perhaps they were the dis
franchised class Punctuation, also, some-
how seemed as bad to them as seven times
nine to Marjory Fleming. 1t was more
than human nature could endure. At any
rate, they never punctuated and their justi-
fcation must have been by faith. since they
never justified by spacing well.
Such was the incapacity of the four or five
score women we have employed as type set
tiers, and such its kind and degree. Their
hands travelled tolerably well and swiftly
from the case to the stick, when the boxes
had been learned not SO we'll from the
hand to the case in distributing but all the
compositor's art, beyond that purely mechan,
ieal part they recked little Of . 1t remains
only to add that they were all faithful to The
extent of tn cir abilities, neat and decent in
their dress, we'll behaved, and that most Of
them had an ordinary common school educa-
ton.
Such are the facts whoever pleases may
preach the sermon.-Ne,c York World.
A PRETTY good story is told of a man,
r. i. L..