Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1883-06-06
The Travelling Type-Setter,
From the Palestine LTexasl Advocate.


lFrom the Palestine tTexas) Advocated
he walked silently in. We knew him
the moment we raised our eyes and saw
him standing there. In fact, we had
been expecting him; he nearly always
comes when we are in just such strait
and needing him. He always wears the
same style of clothes-coat of one kind
and pants of another, he hash tany vest,
his shoes are worn and run down at the
heels, and his hat is battered and dusty.
There are spots of ink about his shirt
which hangs over his waistband, and his
new paper collar is the only fresh, white
thing about him, and it looks as though
he had just put it on with soiled fingers.
lie is pale, weak-eyed and prematurely
gray-haired; he looks as though he had
never known regular hours, either for
sleeping or eating, and he must have
come thousands Of miles and been COM
ing ever since he was boy. His start
ing point was so far away, and SO long
ago, that he has almost forgot
ten when and where it was;
but we have an idea that it must have
been when his mother buttoned his
little blue shirt band around his white.
boyish throat, put on his little straw hat
and sent him harefooted to ask for
place to work in the printing Office.
How proud he was when he went home
that first night and showed his new brass
rule, and tells mother he has learned all
the boxes and has free ticket to the
circus next week, and the editor gave
him big piece OF wedding cake, a part
OF which he has brought home for the
baby, and If he sets up column in one
day next week he can go fishing on Sat-
urdaY. Yes, somewhere about there was
the commemorate of his long journey,
and here he is now, perhaps two-thirds
on the way. He asks us: What's the
show for sit ?" We give him case,
and by and by he says he feels faint,
and asks us if we can't lend him quar-
ter-he hasn't had any breakfast yet.
We know his weakness, and as we need
his work, we go down with him and
order some breakfast for him at the
nearest restaurant. When he comes
back he looks happier and better able to
work. In the evening, when he goes to
distributing his case, he recouuts the
history of his late places of employment
He knows the circulation and amount of
business of every paper in the
state and just Why the Dispatch
suspended and why the Advance sold
out to the Courier. He is well acqualnt-
ed with the unknown editor of the
Thunderer, and has friends on the ed
itorial force of all the leading journals
of the country. By-and-by he whistles
low an air from the Italian opera, and
in reply to a question answers with a
Latin quotation. He stays with US a
week, and we grow to like him more and
more every day; he has read everything
from Shakespeare and Ruskin to Mark
Twain and Bill Arp; he knows more
about our laws, national and state, than
the best lawyer in the city; he is we'll
acquainted with the lives of every en-
inent person Of the age, and is perfect
encyclopaedia of current events; but we
cannot afford to keep him any longer,
SO pay him off and he again starts on
the long road that leads-not to home,
for he has none; not to the society Of
intelligent people like himself, for out
side of the printing office he is unknown;
may be back to night.work on some city
daily, or if too old and worn for that, a
rapid descent from one country Office to
another, with whisky and laudanum for
companions, to an unmarked grave by
some lonely wayside.