The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-06-07
THE OLD PRINTER
a Sketch of Life Behind the Scenes in
Newspaper Composing Room.

Sketch of Life Behind the Scenes in a
Newspaper Composing Room.
r. J. Burdette, in Burlington Hawkeye
Slug Nine" learned his letters right from the
boxes, and grew up and learned to set type in
one OF those mustang offices where they keep
the type IN a cofee-sack and chalk out the cases
on the floor. He wasn't even very fast printer;
he didn't often rush, and he never ''soldiered for
the fat on the hook but took whatever came
along with equal patience and good nature,
whether it a pickup or a great take Of
blind copy, scrubbed in pencil on blue foolscap
on both sides Of the paper and marked solid,
with never break or paragraph from A to r.
But he would stand at that old case and
pick up type all night pegging along on
straight BREWER as TRANQUILITY though he struck
a display head on every take. lie always made
fair bills, and after while as the sixties began
creeping on him. the boys had way of soldier
ing" for him, and maybe you don't know how
hard it is for printer not to dropa good many
type, and tumble for the boxes, and let his thumb
get most awfully sore, and have to hunt for the
bellows and blow out his case, and study the
copy very closely and find it dreadfully hard to
read, and that sort of thing, when by rushing
little he can get a pickup as long as your arm
and a loaded take with a paragraph to every
sentence, But they did that for the old man,
and he knew 1t by and by, and loved the boys as
though they We're his own every last slug of
them
And so, year after year. he wrought among
the boys on a morning paper He went to bed
world
and he arose about the time the rest of the
world sat down to dinner He worked by
every kind of light except sunlight. There
were candles in the office when he came H.
then they had lard oil lamps, that smoked and
Spluttered and Smelled then he saw two three
printers blinded by explosions of camphene and
spirit gas then kerosine came in and heated up
the news-rOom on summer nights like furnace;
then the Office put in gas: and now the electric
light hung from the ceiling and dazzled his old
eyes and gared into them from his copy. If he
sang ON his way home, a policeman bade him
cheese that" and reminded him that he was
disturbing the peace, and people wanted to
sleep. But when he wanted to sleep the rest of
the world, for whom he had sat up all night to
make a morning paper, roared and crashed by
down the noisy street under his window, with
cart, and truck, and omnibus; blared with brass
bands, howled with hand organs, talked and
shouted; and even the shreling newsboy, with
a CHASTITY sarcasm. murdered the sleep of the
tired old printer by yelling the name of his own
paper Year after year the foreman roared at
HIM to remember that this wasn't an afternoon
paper editors shrieked down the tube to have
u blind man put on that dead mans
case; smart young proofreaders scrib-
bled sarcastic comments on his work
on the margin of his proof slips; long winded
correspondents learning to write, and long
haired poets who could never learn to spell.
wrathfully cast all their imperfections upon his
head. But through it all, he wrought patient
ly, and found more sunshine than shadow in the
world; he had more friends than enemies. Print
ers, and foremen, and pressmen, and reporters,
and editors came and went, but he staid and he
saw news-room and sanctum filed and emptied,
and filled and emptied again, and filled again
with and strange faces.
He was working one night and when the
hours that are short in the ball room and so
long in the composing room drew YEARLY on, he
was tired He hadn't thrown in full case he
said. One of the boys, tired as himself-but
printer is never too tired to be good -natured-of-
fered to change places with him, but the old man
said there was enough i'll his case to last him
through his take, and he wouldn't work any moro
tonight The type clicked in the silent ROOM
and by and by the old man said:
'I'm out of sorts"
He sat down the low window-sill by his
case, with his stick in his hand, his hands folded
YEARLY in his lap The types clicked on.
galley of telegraph waited
will any one kindly tell me what gentleman
is lingering with d 1877 called the foreman, who
was always dangerously polished and polite
when he was on the point of exploding with
wrath and impotence.
Slug Nine, passing by the alley, stopped to
speak to the old man sitting there so quietly.
The telegraph boy came running in with the
last manifold sheet shouting:
Thrifty
They carried the old man to the foreman's
long table, and laid him down reverently, and
covered his face. They took the stick out of his
nerveless hand, and read his last take:
Boston, Nov 23.-The American baroue Pilgrim,
went to pieces off Marblehead in light gale about
midnight. She old and unseaworthy, and this was
to have been her last trip.