The Sweetwater enterprise. (Sweetwater, Tenn.) 1869-187?, 1871-06-08
THE ENTERPRISE.
Sweetwater. Thursday, June s, 1871.
The Printer aad His Types.

nU Il AatOA anu HIS Il PTS
The following beautiful extract is from
the pen OF Benjamin F, Taylor, the
printer:
Perhaps there is no department of en-
terprise whose details are less under
stood by intelligent people than the
cart preservative the achievement OF
types.
Every day, their life long, they are nc
customed to read the newspapers, to
find fault with its statements, its AZ
rangements it's looks to plume them,
selves upon the discovery of some
roguish acrobatic type that gets into n
frolic aud stands upon its head or OF
some waste letter or two in it--but of
the process by which the newspaper is
made, Of the myriads Of motions and
thousands OF pieces necessary to its COM
position they know little and think less.
They imagine they discourse of n won
der indeed when they speak Of the fair
white carpet woven for thought to walk
on Of the rags that huttered ON the back
OF n beggar yesterday.
But there is something more wonder
full still. When We look at the hundred
and fifty-two little boxes, somewhat
shaded with the touch of inky fingers
that compose the printers "case -
| noiseless, except the clicking of type, as
one by one they take their places in
growing line--we think we have found
the marvel OF the art.
We think how many fragments there
are in the boxes; how many atoms of
poetry and eloquence tho printer can
make here and there if he only had II
little chart to work by how many facts
in small " handful ; how much truth
i'll chaos.
Now he picks up the scattered Gle
ments until he holds in his hand stan
IN of " Gray's Elegy," or monodony on
Grimes "All buttoned up before" Now
he sets a puppy missing" and now
Paradise Lost > he arrays bride in
"small caps, and sonnet in "nonpa-
rcIl;" he announces the langlrishing
live" i'll one sentence-transposes the
words, and deplores the days that are
few and " evil in the next.
A poor jest ticks It's way slowly into
the printers hand, like clock just run
ming down, and Il strain of eloquence
marches into line letter by letter. We
fancy we can tell the difference by the
hearing of the ear, but perhaps not,
The types that told wedding yester-
day announces burial to-mOrTOw-per-
hNps the self-same letters.
They are the clements to make q world
of-rhoso types are; world with some
thing in it ns beautiful as spring, rs rich
ns summer, and as grand as autumn
flowers that frost cannot wilt, fruit that
shall ripen for all time.
The newspaper has become the log
book Of the age it tells ut what rate the
world is rnnning; we cannot find our
reckoning " without it.
True, the greengrocer may bundle up
n pound Of candles in our last expressed
thoughts, but it is only coming to base
uses, something that is done times innu-
merable.
We console ourselves by thinking that
one can make of that newspaper what he
cannot make of living oats-.-a bridge for
time; that he can fling it over the chasm
of the dead years and walk safely back
upon the shadowy sea into the past.
The singer shall not end his song, nor
the true soul be eloquent no more.
The realm Of the press is enchanted
ground. Sometimes the editor has had
the happiness Of knowing that he has
defended the right, exposed the wrong,
protected the weak; that he has cheered
somebody's solitary hour, made some
body happier, kindled n smile upon n
sad face, hope on a heavy heart.
He may meet with that sentiment
many years after it may have lost all
charms of its paternity, but he feels at
lection for it. He welcomes it as q long
absent child. He reads it for the first
t me, and wonders if, indeed, he wrote it
for he has changed since then. Per-
haps he could not give utterance to the
sentiment now-perhaps he would not if
he could.
It seams like the voice Of his former
self calling to its parents, and there is
something mournful in its tone. He be-
gins to think--to remember why he
wrote it, where were his readers then,
and whittier they have gone-what was
he then, and how much he has changed.
SO he muses., until he finds himself Won
doring if that thought Of his will con-
tinue to float after he is dead, and
whether he is really looking apon some
thing that will survive him. And then
comes the sweet consciousness that
there is nothing at al in the sentence
that he could wish nwritten-that it is
u better purt of him--a shred from the
garment Of Immortality he should leave
behind when he joins the innumorable
caravan" and takes his place i'll the ST.
lent halls Of death.
-----b-o-4----
An editor i'll Indiana stated that u
rival who was coming to town to start
IN opposition paper, WAS u pretty good
fellow, but "parted his hair III the mid
die" Every man in the place who could
leave his store went to the depot to see
the new comcr,. but instead of seeing
tho spruce and dandifed young man
they expected, they saw an elderly and
rather shabby gentleman, who, as he
raised his hat in honor of the crowd,
they found to be as bald as billiard
ball. His hair was parted in the middle,