Morning journal and courier., 1880-05-17
Secrets of the Printing Office.

! One Class of Men Who Were Never Known to Betray Professional COnfi- | dence.
 1 [From the London Printer and stationerI Printers have never, we think, received due appreciation for the honorable confidence
 1 which they have preserved in regard to the secrets with which they have necessarily been | entrusted. Such case as this often happens.
 | An article in a newspaper or magazine makes 1 what is called sensation" 1t IS entirely anonymous, and public curiosity is excited to | the utmost to discover the name Of it's author. l The writer may be cabinet minister, a high I official courier, or any of the thousand and | one persons who, if we were suspected of writ | ing for the press, would at once lose his posi- tion his office---perhaps his reputation. On | the other hand, the writer may be struggling author, hard-worklng journalist, or mere literary amateur. In any case his secret is preserved his anonymity is safe as long as 1t 1 is confined to the printers.
 Some years ago there was a great stir made about book entitled ''Ecce Homo" It was clever work, and had unexampled suc- cess. ''Who is the author ?" was the question on everybody's lips Some scores of persons were named and they repudiated their par ticipation in it. All sorts of conjectures were hazarded, and no doubt large sums would have been paid by several conductors of jour nals for authentic information as to the name of the author. Yet that name was known
 
 some of the compositors, but it was never re- vealed. When the name was published it was not through the instrumentality of the printers, but entire independent of them. They had faithfully kept their secret. Going back few years, the authorship of the ''Waverly Novelsn may be referred to as a remarkable incident of literary history. Sir Walter Scotts authorship, although known by twenty persons, including num- Der of printers, well concealed that the great novelist could not, even in his l matchless vocabulary, find words of praise acknowledgement and wondering admiration for the matchless fidelity with which the mystery has been preserved.
 There is another species of secrecy---that relating to the careful supervision of confi- dential public documents books printed for
 secret societies, and the authorship of arti cles or pamphlets, as already referred to, which has been most honorably maintained. When treaties are prematurely published in newspapers the copy is obtained from some leaky venal official and not from any of the printers who set up or work off the orig inal A case of this kind occurred a year or two ago. wherein a convention between this country and another power was revealed to one of the evening newspapers. In the for eignsoffice, at Whitehall, there is a regular staff of printers always at work and if these men liked they might let our secrets of the most momentous kind, any one of which l would perhaps, in these days of journalistic competition, be worth few hundred pounds. ! But such derelietion of duty has never yet occurred it was clerk, and not compost tor who betrayed his trust
 Most honorable to the profession is the story of Harding, the printer, who bravely ! bore imprisonment rather than reveal the 1 authorship of the celebrated 'EDrapier" let \ ters. The printer sat in his cell, calmly re- 1 fusing the entreaties of his friends to divulge ! the name of the writer, Dean Swift, church magnate, and great wit, who dressed him ! self in the disguise of a low Irish peasant and sat by listening to the noble refusal and the 1 importunities, only anxious that no word or glance from the unfortunate printer should reveal the secret Swift was bent solely up | on securing his own safety at the expense of \ the printer he covered before the legal dan l ger which Harding boldly confronted. The world was unequally allotted the need of l fame to the two combatants. The wit and I the printer both fought the battle for the | liberty of the press, until the sense of an out I ragged community released the typographer | from the peril so nobly encountered
 In thousands of other instances similar f. | delity has been exhibited. In shorl it is | part of the professional honor of a printer | not to disclose, either wantonly or from venal l motives, the secrets of any office in which he | is employed.
 There IS also the allegiance which printers pay to their chief, in not divulging important intelligence. In same cases compositor is l necessarily entrusted with an item of news l which would be negotiable immediately and ! worth pounds to him. Seldom or ever is
 there betrayal of trust in this way The examination papers, printed so extensively in London, are of the most tremendous impor- tance to certain classes, who would pay al- most any sum to obtain the toughest proof the night before. An instance of this kind | occurred quite recently "A printer was got at, and promised considerable amount of ! money for rough proof What was his course of action? Re simply informed the authorities, and the tempter was punished
 It was another and creditable example of how well and honorably kept are the secrets of the printing office.