Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1871-06-16
4liscellany.
A word About job Printing.

There is so much good sense in the fol-
lowing article from the st. Adams Mes
senger, applicable to other communities
than St. Adams, that we copy it;
1t has recently become the practice of
a few Job printing offices in the large
cities to send 6rummers into the smaller
cities and large country towns to solicit
business. They carry with them sam
piles of bill.heads, letter heads, business
cards, blank receipts, notes, checks, etc,
and offer to print according to sample
and at prices which cannot possibly at
ford a profit. They tell the merchants
that these country offices neither have
the facilities nor possess the skill to do
equally good work, and that by reason
of not having so much to do, cannot of
course do it so cheaply. This appears
plausible, and gentlemen who have good
taste, and an eye to the economical as
we'll as the beautiful, will give them
their patronage; and on the principle
that a man always has a right to trade
where he can trade to best advantage,
will feel justified against any complaint
that we poor devils may be disposed to
make.
Now word. We admit the larger
facilities of many city offices, and admit
that many of them employ engravers,
which country offices cannot afford to do /;
but we do not admit that they can do
printing cheaper or better than any well
stocked and well kept country office.
Their rents are higher, the wages of their
employees are higher, and nothing which
they use about their work is cheaper
than the stock which we are obliged to
keep on hand. And as for being able
to work cheaper becuse they have more
work to do, thisapplies only to the large
ness of jobs and not to their multiplicity
The same rule applies with us. All off
ces can print 1000 copies proportionally
cheaper than 500 But no office car
print thousand different jobs proportion
ally cheaper than FIVE hundred, unles
they have not otherwise sufficient employ
ment, or unless they have remarkabi
saneness in their work. We do work S,
reasonably here in the country that W
cannot afford to send runners" bum
mers" we had almost said-througl
small towns to solicit business. They ii
the cities must get their pay for it iron
some source, and is it probable that the
love the country so much better than til
city as to make their home patrons pa
it? Not very. No, the fact is that min,
tenths Of their country patrons are d'
ceived by them deceived as to the abb
ity of offices in their own villages to d
the same work deceived as to the actt
al cost of it, deceived as to the qualit
of the ink and paper by these city col
Germs, and deceived as to the "skill' en-
ployed, ior many OF the samples whio
we have seen are loud and tawdry b
yond xpression-outrage upon GOO
taste, and just such cheap and fasl
things as City Snobbery conceives tn
Country Taste admires.
But even if their work we're bett
(and we are willing to compare sampl
any day. yet is it to the real interest
the country to patronize them? Ev
if their work is cheaper (Which we den
is there enough saved by the count
merchant or banker so that he can
ford to thus weaken any institution
his own town? Here is the point, al
we want it understood every count
Office must depend entirely on home p
ronage or it must go down. Ruin Q
Job business and we cannot sustain O
newspapers. A merely local paper ca
not by any possibility attain circulate
large enough to pay its expenses and
ford sufficient profit to engage such tale
as can alone make it worthy any patr,
age at all. If the paper is not &C
one it has no claims for support, and
have no sympathy with that played
old argument that journal or a j
office merely because it is local inst
ton is worthy of liberal and unanim
local support. But if it is good one,
honor and great advantage to the to-
as we'll as an important benefit to the
tire community around, then it is EMIT
to live and be encouraged. 1t agiti
public questions, it reports public ]
ceedings, itprotests against public wrol
it advocates public rights, it gives
local news, it promotes local thrift
magnifies your local consequence
sounds abroad your local fame. The
Adams Butter Market, the Burline
Lumber Trade, and the Rutland Ma
Business owe more to the leading pa
of their towns than they can estim
and every other kind of business is $
larly benefited in the same ratio.
II