The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1878-06-06
a Typographical Crime.

Once there was book. 1t was most
wonderful book. 1t contained history
and biography, and poetry, and letters,
and essays, and drama-in short, it was
many books in one. l think it was the
greatest and best book that ever was
written.
Scarcely had this book come into gen.
eral notice, when great conspiracy
against its life was formed This con-
spiracy involved men of various nationali-
ties, and has extended through several
centuries. Strange to say, the conspira.
tors were mostly scholars. and large num-
bers of them were apparently upright
and conscientious men, from whom you
would have expected nothing but the
fairest dealing toward their fellow men,
or toward any theory or doctrine or pub
lication, no matter how much they might
be opposed to it or how pernicious they
might believe it to be.
A few Of the more violent conspirators
wanted to suppress the book by burning
every copy of it that could be reached,
and to some extent they carried out this
plan. But that was gross and ineffect-
ual process, compared with the one
adopted by the great majority. These,
while protesting to be friendly to the
book, to hold it in the highest esteem,
and to desire that all men should become
acquainted with it, went to work to pre-
vent the reading Of it by making it un
readable To this end they expended a
vast amount of ingenuity, and the success
which has attended their efforts is one of
the saddest calamities that ever befell
mankind.
One of the conspirators went through
the entire book, and broke it into little
paragraphs, from one to ten lines long
often making the break where there was
no more division than a comma and
then these little paragraphs were osten-
tatiously numbered, giving it, to an ex
aggerated degree, the repulsive appear
ance Of a school-reader. With very few
recent exceptions, this preposterous ar
rangement has been perpetuated in every
edition for three hundred years; and
even in the exceptional ones it is indi-
Gated by figures in the margin, SO strong
is the power of precedent, though it be
manifestly wrong.
The conspirators then caused large
number of the words, for no sufficient
reason, to be printed in intalics so that
nearly every page is spotted and defaced
with them Next they plowed a lane
down through the middle of each page,
and filled it with microscopic figures and
authorizations, and at the same time pep
pered the entire text with letters and
figures, and daggers, and ble-daggers.
and parallels, and section -marks-all re-
ferring to those little eye-tryingss affairs. in
the lane. Then they loaded down the
noble old book with ponderous mass of
foot notes. many Of them valuable, but
many of them the merest truisms and
this gave them an opportunity to pepper
the text with more figures and letters,
and daggers, and double-daggers, and
parallels, and section-marks..
With all this they passed an unwritten
law that the book should always be print
ed in one volume-a law which has been
transgressed in but few instances. But
as it con tains about as much matter as
Macaulays History of England" which
is generally printed in five volumes, this
law makes it necessary either to have the
book SO large as to be unwieldy, or the
type so small that it cannot be read with
comfort.
The consequence is what might have
been expected. Though more copies o
this book have been circulated than ot
any other, comparatively few people read
it so as to become familiar with it, except
those who are paid for so doing. 1t con
tains some of the most important history
ever written; yet there are eager readers
of history who know almost nothing
about it. One of its contributors was the
finest philosophical essayist that ever
put pen to paper; yet there are readers
of Bacon and Lamb and Montague who
are wofully ignorant of his writings
There are devourers of poetry who dc
not know what lyrics are buried here
and play goers and students of Elizabeth
an literature who have never perused {
page of a certain powerful drama, three
thousand years old, because it is secured
behind the typographical chevaur de-tris
which have described