Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1885-03-05
WOOD ENGRAVING n WOOD
CARVING.

The rage for newspaper illustrations
which has sprung up in night like
Jonah's gourd go slow here; was il
Jonah or some other fishermen who
raised that prize gourdP)-threatens to
undermine the foundations of journal
ism and relegate the press back to the
fourth estate, the position it occupied
in Ben Franklin's time, and the Sun
feels justified in speaking out in clar-
ionette. UiUd U0ce tones against the
evil before it is everlastingly too late.
As longas illustrations were confined
to books. magazines, Bibles, and a few
special weeklies, We were happy and
contented nation; there was a place for
cuts, and cuts were in their place; but
now, the little blaze which some one
klndled has become a raging contla-
grafton. marring the fair pages of a
great proportion of the newspapers in
the land. Of you like ''wet good"
better than the fire simile, start it of
as little rivulet, increasing until it
becomes roaring torrent. They are
both the same price,
There are several reasons why this
wood-cut craze is bad. First, large
per cent. of the cuts are execrable in
an artistic point of view, especially the
so-called portraits. Occasionally there
are some that are natural and life-like,
but the larger part no more resemble
the individual they are said to portray
than chalk is like cheese.
Again, newspapers that are in the
habit of beating their readers out of
large quantities of good reading matter
to which they are justly entitled by the
payment of two dollars year in ad-
vance" (or less, as the case may be)
by filling space with these alleged por-
traits are liable to file the cuts away for
future reference, on window lodges, in
the bank, and various other handy
places, and spring them again on
suffering public later. Thus. a cut
purporting to be Henry Ward Beecher
this season will perhaps appear next
year as Gladstone or Henry Irving;
Lieutenant Greely will be shown some
time in the hence as Prince Albert's
son, and so on.
Another evil growing out of this syn
dictate cut business is the cheap notori-
ETY. furnished to Thomas. Richard and
Henry. Let a man or woman once get
his or her name in the daily papers,
from whatever cause-be it running for
governor, running away with another
mans wife Tor woman's husband) rob-
b;ng bank, or inventing Il self-acting
wheelbarrow-andf forthwith their os-
tensble lineaments are gouged out on
boNwood or maple, stereotypes or cleo
trotypes are made, and appear by the
hundreds in papers which are in the
pool for weeks thereafter. Some
papers squeeze two-column cuts into
width, necessitating slicing
the rarty's shoulders off, and giving
him sort of piached up appearance.
This is bad.
Many papers make it point to pub
lish portraits of local celebrities, the
hero of the sketch standing in" with
the publishers on the cost of the en-
craving. IAN old resident listens to
the seductive tongue of the interviewer
and is lost. A divorce suit is instituted,
the details are ''racy," and the unhap-
py pair are presented to the public,
either separate and apart or linked to-
gether in a wreath like a Blaine and
Logan cut. A new pastor is ''called"
from somewhere, at a raise over his
previous salary of $3.50 and his stu
dious countenance, ''furrowed DER
with the sickly cast of thought" "
is printed on seven-cent print paper,
with ten-cent news ink, the inevitable
sketch accompanying it, with appro-
pirate head lines, and the dominic is
and disappointed. 1t looks
more like a disciple of Jack Shepard
than dissemination of the gospel.
And so it goes. Papers in Arizona
and Wyoming, which ought to devote
only modicum (out with your pencils
and iot this word down-it is of
choice Variety of their space to polite
al and general affairs, are enabled by
the duplicate process to fill several
hundred square inches with cuts of par
ties that their readers don't care con-
tinental for, to the exclusion of impor-
tant happenings in Poker Flat, Shirt
tail Gulch, Red-Dog Valley, Dead-Shot
Bar and various other localities.
Nor is the injury confined alone to
the reading public. There being an
apparent demand for illustrations,
there must be supply; and hence
many misguided youths and men in the
back counties who are handy at tinker
ing around home with carpenter tools,
and know all about the internal econo-
my of sewing machines and clocks get
the idea that they are natural born en-
gravers, and proceed at once TO sharp
en- up sundry brad-awls, broken files.
small chisel or two, and their jack
knives, and announce themselves as
designers and engravers. The local
paper, not to be outdone by the metro
politan daily, prints the abnormal pro-
ductions of these wood-butchers, and
refers to them as the work of ''our
special artist" Mr.. Soandso, and he
has the big head worse than ever.
Many boys are thus ruined for life.
While they would have succeeded well
with scroll saw and simple carving
tools, and produced many handsome
brackets, paper-racks, whatnots, etc,
which would have sold readily and real
ly been a credit to them, they have lost
valuable time spelling lockwood and
maple and produced nothing but a lot
of unearthly-looking pictures, every
one of which requires key to be I'M
derstood.
No. boys and gentleman, the art of
engraving is not at the tinger-ends of
every ordinary whittier and ingenious
..Jack-of-all-trades it requires months
of patient toll to even master the rudi-
ments necessary to become a tirst-class
artist, and years of practice under COM
petent masters to rank with them.
These remarks are called out gener-
ally by the specimens of poor engrav-
ings so prevalent in the daily and
weekly papers, and especially by some
samples sent from Iowa for our inspec-
ton. As they are about the worst lot
ever printed since Columbus landed in
this country, brief description may be
in order. but words-mere words-will
absolutely fail to do them justice.
They should be framed and sent to the