Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1874-07-10
The Tramping Printer.

anu peculihr haihs "hiS"
the name, Some day taker-oh OF the
grotesque forms of humanity, nosing
about with keen scent of genius, will
discover the individual we refer to-and
having discovered him will photograph
and immortalize him for the future time
and naturalize him as thoroughly into
the nation of brain-born people as is Mi
cawber, Pickwick, Uriah Hep, or Becky
Sharp. We refer to the tramping print
err. He gradually steals upon the new
adventurer in the publishing business,
and it is not until years have added to
his experience that he fully realizes that
he has become acquainted with a new
type of the genus homo.
The thorough tramp belongs to
class as distinct and unmistakable as the
thorough Bohemian. So does the chilli
onier, the rag-picker, the garbage-gath-
erer, the scavenger, and the gentleman
whose delicate olfactories most affect the
sewers and cess.pools of large cities. We
must have them all, though exactly
where and how to have them is matter
in which tastes widely differ. In large
cities the Bohemian is sometimes very
convenient, if not indispensable. Oder
ferrous though his seedy habiliments may
be of cheap tobacco and sour beer, a
time comes when he is welcome and USE
full, and in such times he lives, anon
sleeping off the o'ernight debauch and
then waking to ftful vitality-another
brilliant effort, another farthing candle
triumph, another brief hour of glory,
another ovation among his fellows in the
"gentIemen's private room of beer
cellar, where he struts and capers and
smiles serenely at what might have
been" had he but consented to tie his
genius down to the drudgery of Journal
ism. The tramp is as much neces-
sity in the country printing office as is
the Bohemian to the metropolitan daily,
He nearly always happens in at the right
time with sort of an instinct that the
office is short of help, and for brief
term he sometimes actually seems an
angel sent from printers heaven to help
the distracted country editor out of his
troubles.
What country editor has not known
odd specimens of that odd class, tramp
ing printers. We have one in memory
now,--an old fellow who has probably
"stuck type" in more than hundred
printing offices. He fought on both
sides during the war, and is full of the
incidents of the straits to which oul
Southern editorial brethren were driven
when paper was exhausted and printers
were impressed. He has singular ac
quaintance with all the distinguished
politicians and editors of the country
that ia, he is familiar with their manu-.
scripts and really seems to be under the
belief that by this medium he has estab
lished sort of confidential intercoust
with them. You should hear him dilat,
on the abominable copy Old Dan," a
he in theconfdence of his peculiar friend
ship calls the immortal Webster, used t,
furnish when Il was on the Globe" III
knew Greeley geographically and de
tested him geographically, yet he vii
admit to you confdentially that after al
cold Horace was clever fellow"
A strange life does the tramp leat
He is always moving on" as restless 8
the wandering Jew,-from Quebec t
Galveston, from St. Paul to Fernandins
from Portland to Natchez, ever on til
move. He has always just arrived, an
he is always cen route" There is 4
installing him. The lingo of the era
is ever on his tongue. Should he
and make no sign by which to identii
himself, search his pockets and you wi
find the rule he has carried for SEQ
or more of years thousands of miles :
"only that and nothing more !" not
copper beside. He intended to be flu
when he got the next new sit" bl
alas, the tramp is dead matter now
A rule obtains among printers th
every tramp must either have sit or
lift; that is, work or money to move o
1t is rarely, if ever, questioned, and th
originated the tramp printers who knc
enough of type setting TO earn a few d,
lars, and are constantly moving from o
part of the country to another. A 7
culiar vagabondage has thus become f,
tened on the craft, which does it no ere
it and often much disgrace Shiftle
purposeless, halfeducated printers O
made by this system. No good print
need be tramp, and bad printer C
be little else. The professional is noto
ously unreliable. He may seem to "hs
pen in just at the right time, but he
almost sare to happen out when m
wanted, and when arrangements hs
been made predicated on his good sai