The Hawaiian gazette., 1880-09-15
3aluaiiatt Gazette.
wEpNEspAY, SEPT EMBER is, 1850.
secrets Of the Printing once.

Secrets OF the Printing Ofnce.
Printers have never, we think, received due
appreciation for the honorable confidence
which they have preserved in regard to the
secrets with which they have necessarily
been instrusted. Such o case as this often
happens An article in newspaper or maya
zine makes what is called sensation" 1t
is entirelyanonymous, and public curiosity is
excited to the utmost to discover the name of
its author The writer may be a cabinet min
lister, high official, courtier, or any Of the
thousand and one persons who, If he were
suspected of writing for the press, would at
once lose his position, his ofice-perhaps his
reputation. On the other hand, the writer
may be a struggling author, a hard-working
journalist, or mere literary amateur. In any
case his secret is preserved: his anonymity is
safe as long as it is confined to the printers.
Some years ago there was a great stir made
about book entitled " Ecce Homo" 1t was
clever work, and had an unexampled success.
"Who is the author?" was the question on
everybody's lips. Some scores of persons
were named, and they repudiated their partici-
patton in it. All sorts of conjectures were
hazarded, and no doubt large sums would have
been paid by several conductors of journals
for authentic information as to the name of the
author Yet the name was known to mas
ter printer, his overseer, and at least some of
the compositors, but it was never revealed.
When the name was published, it was not
through the instrumentality of the printers,
but entirely Independent Of them. They had
faithfully kept their secrect.
Going back few years, the authorship of
the "Waverly Novels" may be referred to as
a remarkable incident of literary history. Sir
Walter Scott's authorship, although known by
twenty persons, was so well concealed that the
great novelist could not, even in his matchless
vocabulary, find words of praise sufficient to
express the sense of his great acknowledgment
and wondering admiration for the matchless
fidelity with which the mystery has been pre-
served.
There is another species of secrecy-tlat
relating to the careful supervision of coniden-
tial public documents, books printed for Sc
cret societies, and the authorship of articles or
pamphlets, as already referred to, which had
been honorably maintained. When treaties
are prematurely published in newspapers the
copy is obtained from some leaky or venal
official, and not from any of the printers who set
up or work off the original. A case of this
kind occurred a year or two ago, where
in a convention between this country and
another power was revealed to one of the even
ing newspapers. In the foreign Office at
Whitehall, there is regular staff of printers
always at work, and if these men liked they
might let out secrets of the most momentous
kind, any one of which would, perhaps in
these days of journalistic competition, be worth
few hundred pounds. But such dereliction
of duty has never yet occurred; it was clerk,
and not compositor, who betrayed his trust.
Most honorable to the profession is the
story of Harding, the printer, who bravely
bore Imprisonment rather than reveal the au-
thorship of the celebrated DRAPER" letters.
The printer sat in his cell calmly refusing the
entreaties of his friends to divulge the name of
the writer, Dean Swift, church magnate, and
a great wit, who dressed himself in the dis
guise of low Irish peasant, and sat by, lis
tening to the noble refusal and the tendar i'm
portunities, only anxious that no word or
glance from the unfortunate printer should re-
veal the secret. Swift was bent solely upon
securing his own safety at the expense of the
printer; he covered before the legal danger
which Harding boldly confronted The world
has unequally allotted the need OF fame to the
two combatants. The wit and the printer both
fought the battle for the liberty of the press,
until the sense of an outraged community re-
leased the typographer from the peril SO nobly
encountered
In thousands of other instances similar fdel-
IVY Iao DCcu S4ulOlltu LII 6UOII, 1t part OF
the professional honor of printer not to dis
close, either wantonly or from venal motives,
the secrets of any office in which he is en-
ployed.
There is also the allegiance which printers
pay to their chief, in not divulgng important
intelligence. In some cases a compositor is
necessarily intrusted with an item of news
which would be negotiable Immediately, and
worth pounds to him. Seldom or ever is there
a betrayal of trust in this way The exami-
nation papers, printed so extensively in Lon
don, are of the most tremendous Importance
to certain classes, who would pay almost any
sum to obtain the toughest proof the night be-
fore. An instance of this kind occurred quite
recently. printer was "got at and prom
ised considerable amount of money for a
rought proof. What was his course of action
He simply informed the authorities, and the
tempter was punished. 1t was another and
creditable example of how well and houorably
kept are the secrets OF the printing office.