Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1886-06-25
a CVB rRINTER.
uariE Twain noIIshts tIo Tynothetn
with Composite. Room Memories.

Workers having more or less to DO with
tyres, commemoratcd the birthday OF BeA.
Franklin by a dinner aS Delmonico'a.
After the spread President Martin, one Of
New York's oldest printers, led OF
with "reminiscences of the historic marycls
Of typography, and Isaac II. Bailey, once
n printers devil, spoke for Ben Franklin.
He said that il Franklin were alive he
would no doubt enjoy the extravaganzas
of Mark Twain and enjoy Lis economies
of the truth.
Mark Twain was there, and his text
was "Thc Compositor." This is what he
Eaid:
81 am staggered Jy the compliments
which have been layishcd and poured out
on me by my friend on my right tAIr.
Bailey | am as proud Of this cOmpli-
ment aG I am staggered. Ii is uncom-
mon in my experience. 1t is the first time
that anybody in my experience has stood
pin tie presence of large and respecta-
bic assemblage Of gentlemen like this, and
confessed that l have told the truth once.
II could Ctuln tie compliment | would
90 it. Laughter at Mr. Bailey's
eIEH7Ls-1
The Chairnqn's historical remjnis-
cences Of Gutenberg have caused me to
feA into "reminiscences, for ] myself am
something of an antiquity. Laughter.
All things change in the procession of
years and it may be that ! am among
strangers. It may be that the printer
of to-day is not the printer of thirty-tive
years ago. was no stranger to him. l
knew him we'll. I built his fire for him in
the winter mornings; l brought his
water from the village pump; swept ont
his office; l picked up his type from
under his stand and, if he was there to
see. put the good type in his case and
the broken ones among the 'heIl matterJ
and il he wasn't there to see, | dumped it
all with he ri on the imposing Stone
for that was the futive fashion Of the cub,
ald was a cub. wetted down the paper
Saturdays, l turned it Sundays-for this
was u country weekly; l rolled, | washed
the rollers. ] washed the forms, | folded
the papers. 1 carried them around at dawn
Thursday mornings | enveloped the
papers that were for the mail
we had one hundred town sub
scribers and three hundred and
fifty country ones; the town subscribers
paid in groceries and the country ones in
cabbage8 ard cordwood-whpn they paid
at all, which was merely sometimes and
then we always stated the fact in the paper,
and gave them u puff; and if We forgot it
they stopped the paper Every man on
the town list helped edit the thing that is,
he gave orders rs to how it was to be
edited; Dictated its opinions, marked out
its course for ii, ard every time the boss
failed to connect, he stopped his paper.
! We were just infested with critics, md we
tried TO satisfy them all over. We had
one subscriber VINO paid cash. a1d he was
more trUUhiC 20 us thaa al the rest He
| bought us, once IL year, body and soul,
| for tWo dollars. lie used TO modify oar
| politics every which way, and lie made us
! change our religion four times in five
years. II We ever tried 10 reason with
| linn. he would threaten to stop his paper,
and, Of course, that mcaut UnEruptcy and
| destruction, That man t.sAi TO write
| articles q column and u half long loaded
| long primer, and sign them Junius or
| Neritas' or NOX Popnl, or some other
| high-sOunding rot and then, after it was
! set up, he would come in and say he had
! changed his mind-which was n gildel
| figure Of speech, because lie hadn't any
and order it to be left out. We couldn't
stand such waste as that; we couldn't
afford bogus in that Office; so we always
took the leads out, altered the signature
| credited the article tn the rival TAPER in
| the next village. and put it in. Well, we
did have one or two kinds Of bogus
Whenever there was barbecue, or u cir
! Gus, OF Il baptizing, we knocked of for half
day; and then to make up for short
matter we would turn our ads'--turn
over the whole page and duplicate it, The
other bogus was deep philosophical stun,
which we judged nobody ever read so we
kept a galley Of it standing and kept on
Shaping the same old catches of it III,
every now and then, till it got dangerous
Also, in the early days Of The telegraph we
used to economic on the news. We
picked out the items that were puintless
and barren Of Information and stood them
on a galley, and changed the dates and
localities and used them over and over
again till the public interest in them was
worn to the bone. We marked the ads,
but we seldom paid any attention to the
marks Gftcrward so the life of n fd' al
and If was equally eternal. have seen
It'd notice of a Sherif's sale still BOOM
ing serenely along two years after the sale
was over, the Sheriff dead, and the whole
circumstance become ancient history. Most
of the yearly ads were patent medicine
| Etere0types, and we used to fence with
them. Life was easy with us il we pied
form we suspended till next week. ard
we always suspended every now and Their
when the fishing was good, and explained
it by the illness OF the editor, a paltry eX
cuse, because that kind OF Il paper was
Just as well off with sick editor as o we'll
one, and better of with dead one thar
with either of them. He was full OF
blessed egodsm and placid self-inpoYt
ance, but he didn't know as much as
2-em quad. He never set any type except
N the rush of the last day. and then hi
would smouch all the poetry, ard leave
the rest to Jeff for the solid takes HC
wrote with impressive fatulence and soar
ing confidence upon the yastest subjects
but putting aims gifts OF wedding cake
salty ice cream, abnormal watermclons
and sweet potatoes the size OF your leg
was his best hold. He was always n poe
IA kind of poet of the Carriers Address
breed-and whenever his intellect suppl
rated, and he read the result to the print
ers and asked for their opinion, they were
very frank and straightforward about it
They generally scraped their rules on Tho
boxes all the time he was reading, ant
called it hog wash when he got through
! All this was thirty-dve years ago, whel
the man who could set 700 an hour coult
put on just az many airs as he wanted to.
81 can secthat printing Office of prehis
toric times yet, with its horse bills on the
walls, its ID boxes clogged with tallow
because We always stood the candle in tht
* box nights, tstowel, which was no
considered soiled until il could stand alone
and other signs and symbols that marked
the establishment of that kind in the Mis-
sissippi Valley; and 1 can see also tn,
trampng joul' who fitted by in the sum