The Portland daily press., 1879-12-05
[From the London Hornet.]

from the London 11Ofnet.
The proof-reader on great daily journal is
a very different being from the man associated
with proofs in the ordinary offices where the
average weekly paper is printed. On the dali
les the chief proof-reader is generally man of
education and often a broken-down gentleman.
He is the son of house which has come to
grief, or he has constructed his own grief for
himself. Having received good grounding
in grammar school, he has passed some time
in respectable college, or perhaps he is grad
uaae of one of the universities Any way, he
has fair acquaintance with Latin, some faint
"reminiscences of Greek and decent smatter-
ing of French. Besides which, he is well sup
piled with general information and has tena-
cious memory for names proper.
He has also a quick eye for form, and can de-
tect turned or from wrong font; can tell
at one glance the from the I, and perceive
when line is too close or too white, or when
patch of type locks spotty He must be a
supreme master of that art which has no fixed
laws, and which is more at the mercy of the
individual than any other-punctuation. 1t
may safely be asserted that no two writing
men out Of hundred would punctuate col
umn of morning paper ldentlcally. The
prOOI-f6du6F Ol SOOu uoily JOuludl ihuoo uO
always able to punctuate so that the matter
may be read intelligibly, and when an author
tries to insist on some unaccuStomed form OF
pointing the reader must be ready to fall back
on the rules of the office, real or imaginary, to
repress eccentricity.
He must, of course, be perfect in spelling, or
nearly so. His knowledge of grammar must
be accurate, and he must have as quick scent
for doubtful or ambiguous grammar as any
school-master. Beyond grammar his domain
reaches. He must have moderate knowledge
of style, chiefly with view to perspicuity.
He must never allow sentence he does not
understand to pass him without querying it,
The cry of ''fire" in the front, the shout of
murder in the back of the place he works in
does not attract his attention half so much as
a turned comma or battered capital letter.
All the other men may run to the back or the
front, he will not stir. There he sits, slowly
following the printed lines on the long proof
slip, now and then asking the copy-holder
question, now and then making hasty mark
on the slip.
There is story told of an attorneys copying
clerk, who was so subjected to the mere art OF
copying and legal form that his master bet
legal friend that he would draw up marriage
certificate between Adam and Eve, keeping
the items such as would suit the condition OF
our first parents, that the clerk would copy it
out. and detect nothing unusual in it.
The settlement was drawn up and handed to
the clerk to copy. When the clerk was hana- no
ter said to him: ''Did you notice anything Pc
culiar in that set tlement?'
tl n1ar ssh,,t that it 0~eAAao
very binding on the mans side."
One might go farther than this with the or.
binary proof-reader, and say that he would
read the proof of an Indictment for murder
against himself with as little emotion as he
would the proof of the multiplication table.
Day after day he reads, and reads, and reads,
seldom more than a quarter of an hour at
time the same matter. Now it is the title page
for prayer book, then the advertisement OF
halter, then half chapter of a story for boys
about pirates, then a review Of new transla-
ton of Plautus, then q portion of the prayer
book, then q galley of "spicy' paragraphs,
then the advertisement of a new pill followed
by list of the diseases it is competent and
anxious to cure.
During all his labors he has for familiar
boy of melancholy voice and weak, and gentle
manners, who 'holds copy" that is, reads out
in dead level monotone the manuscript OF
which the printed copy is before the reader.
From this manuscript the crushed boy never
lifts his eyes. Whether it is "comc copy or
the account of an exciting fight between pi-
rates and Midshipman Jacks command, that
boys tone never varies. On straight he goes,
getting no more excited over the appetizing
the host of diseases which the pill is able and
anxious to stay.
This man and boy never weep, never laugh,
never smile at any matter coming before them
in the routine of their profession. Like police
magistrates they are wholly unmoved by any
thing they hear while on duty; but unlike po-
lice magistrates, they have no audiences, and
would gain nothing by affecting the virtue of
sympathy when they have it not.