Sharp County record., 1885-02-19

husv at their eases under the electric
Tcht. The room where the type Is set
is LARGE enough for a market garden
If is made up of three long halls sepa-
rated from one another by pillars and
brick arches. The central hall contains
marble tables where the forms are made
up. and in the others are the type cases
ranged in double rows from one END OF
the hall to the other, and over each case
q bright. soft electric light, with china
shade over it. These men are paid IN
proportion to the amount OF work they
do. and the rate established by law Is
fifty cents per thousand ems.
The Record must 90 to press at
twenty minutes to five in order to be
ready for the six o'clock mails, and
when it is unusually large this neces-
sitv makes the Government Printing
office the most busy place in the city
in the early morning.
Each congressman gets tWenty-ole
copies of the Record, and he may have
these from day to day, or take then IN
the bound volumes, as he prefers. The
congressman give their extra copies 10
libraries and friends, and not few OF
them find their way into the second
hand book stores of Washington, where
thev can be bought of almost any date
at from fifty cents to one dollar per
volume.
But the printing of the Record IS by
no means the largest part OF the WORE OF
this mammoth printing-ohice. Its So
OOO.O 900 worth of work includes all the
Government publications, and this sim
seems large, indeed, when it IS remcm-
bered that in 1894, just ninety years
ago. the Government printing, 'togeth-
er with the firewood and stationery OF
Congress. cost only $4,000. In 1903
the Presidents message was the first
document printed, and in 1919, when
Monroe was President, each House
elected its own printer for the session.
After this Congressional printers De-
came the most money-making men IN
Washington. Gales and Seaton each
made fortunes, and Blair and Rives fol
lowed them, entertaining handsomely
at the Capital, and owning properly.
The printing of the twenty-8eventh Con
oress cost 100000, and shortly afier
this the contract system was adopted.
In 1852 the office of superintendent OF
Public Printing was created, and In
1876 it became an Executive instead OF
a Congressional office.
1t is impossible to conceive the
amount of work this department does
now. 1t employs four hundred more
hands at present than it did in 1880, and
during that year it printed 100000
copies of pamphlets and documents,
341 900 blank books, and made l3l, ,OOO,-
600 of blanks and envelopes. One OF
its finest works in the past was its "a
cifc Railroad reports, which cost the
Government over SS00,000, and it Is
getting out the Rebellion Record, .
which ist:n il sn ennapriso 96 volumes OF SOY
TO 90 through all the different rooms
of the Government Printing-Office, from
floor to floor, makes one as tired as
three-mile walk. 1t is like going all
around one immense dancing-hall and
then trotting on into another and so on
with continuous panorama OF paper,
type, printers and machinery before
you, until your legs are worn out with
walking and your eyes tired with seeing
new things. | walked through the
rooms where the monthly volume, as big
as two of Webster's dictionaries, con-
tanning the patent specifications, is set
up, and where, at times, twenty tons OF
type remain standing went into the
document room. where hundreds OF
printers in their shirt t-sleeves, sur
rounded by walls If glaring white
ness, were setting up Government re-
ports by the light of hundreds of little
golden snakes, each known as an cleo
tric lamp, and on into room after room
devoted to the storage of paper Sheet
upon sheet and ton upon ton there are
here slowed away, enough paper to
cover the tracks of all the railroads in
the country, and leave enough remain
ing to carpet Ohio and Indiana. l
went into the press room, and my
ears were almost deafened with the
hum of its many presses of all shapes
and sizes from the old Bullock to the
improved Campbell. | saw them print
ing all kinds of work in one room. At
one press seed packages as large as a
visiting card and at another blanket
sheets of Government document with
thirty-two pages on a sheet. | noticed
that all the feeders of these presses
were women, and some of them very
pretty young women, too. They stood
up on a landing at the head of each
press, and with their hands pushed for
ward sheet after sheet as it went into
the press. On the floor above | saw
these same sheets folded into book form
by wonderful folding machines, and
here again it was woman who operated
each machine. Still higher in the bind
ing department more women were en-
ployed at nearly all of the machines,
and the hand sewing was done by them.
FThnra hnal-- 10 ira- M q honly