The Irish standard., 1886-07-24
A CUB pR1HTEl
Mark Twain Dell.ht, she Typothetse
with Colnpo.lny ak o Orn MemO Orles.

Mark Twain Delights The Typothetse
with IMPOSING Room Memories.
Typothet@. an association of New
Yorkers having more or less to do with
types, commemorated the birthday of Ben.
Franklin by dinner at Delmonico's.
After the spread President Martin, one of
New York's oldest printers. led off
with "reminiscences of the historic marvels
of Typography, and Isaac H. Bailey, once
printers devil, spoke for Ben. Franklin.
He said that it Franklin were alive he
would no doubt enjoy the extravaganzas
of Mark Twain and enjoy his economies
of the truth.
Mark Twain was there, and his text
WAS, .S'he COmpositor" This is what he
said:
IL am staggered by the compliments
which have been lavished and poured out
on me by my friend on my right (AIr.
Bailey. am as proud of this compli-
ment az am staggered. 1t is uncom-
mon in my experience 1t is the first time
that anybody in my experience has stood
up in the presence of large and respecta-
bic assemblage of gentlemen like this, and
confessed that have told the truth once.
Ii could return the compliment I would
do it. Laughter at Mr.. Bailey's
"The Chairmans historical reminis-
cenccs of Gutenberg have caused me to
fail 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. 1t may be that the printer
of to-day is not the printer Of thi;ty-fiye
years ago. | was no stranger to him. /
knew him we'll. / built his fire fer him in
the winter mornings; 1 brought his
water from the village pump; Iswept out
his office; I 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 hell NATTER
and it he wasn't there to see, | dumped it
all with the pi on the imposing stone
for that was the futive fashion Of the cub,
and was q cub wetted down the paper
Saturdays, turned it Sundays--for this
was St country weekly; rolled, washed
the rollers. ] washed the forms, I folded
the papers. | carried them around at dawn
Thursday mornings I enyeloped the
papers that We're for the mail
we had one hundred town SUBJ
scriDers and three hundred and
fifty country ones; the town subscribers
paid in groceries and the country ones in
cabbages and cordwood-when they paid
at all, which WAS merely sometimes and
then we always stated the fact i'll the paper,
and gave them puff; and if We forgot it
they stopped the paper. Every luan on
the town list helped edit the thing that is,
he gave orders as to how it was to be
edited; dictated it's opinions, marked out
its course for it, and every time the boss
failed TO connect he stopped his paper.
We were just infested with critics, and we
tried to satisfy them all over. We had
ore subscriber who paid cash, and he was
more trouble to us than all the rest. lie
bought us, once a year, body and soul,
for two dollars. He used to modify our
politics every which way and he made lis
change our religion four times in five
years live ever tried TO reason With
him. he would threaten to stop his paper,
and of course, that meant bankruptcy and
destruction. That man used to write
articles a column and half long, loaded
long primer, and sign them 'Junius' OF
sVeritas' or 'Vox Populi.' or some other
high-sounding rot; and then, after it was
set up, he would come in and say he had
changed his 1nind---wbich Was 81 gilded
igure Of speech, because he hadn't any
and order it to he lett out. We couldn't
stand such waste as that; Ne couldn't
afford bogus in that office; SO we always
took the leads out. altered the signature,
credited the article to the rival paper In
the next village, and put it in. Well, we
did have one or two kinds OF bogus
Whenever there was barbecue, or cir
Gus, or & 5aptiZlng, we knocked off for half
q day and then to make UP for short
matter we would turn our aus'--tuln
over the whole page and duplicate it. The
other bogus was deep philosophical stuff,
which we judged nobody ever read; 80 we
kept a galley of it standing aud kept Oh
slappblg the same old patches Of it in,
every now and then, till it got dangerous.
Also in the early days OF the telegraph we
used to economic on the news We
and barren OF information and stood them
On 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 afterward SO the life OF 'td' ad
and a IT, WAS equally eternal have seen
:td' notice of a Sheriffs 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
stereotypes and we used to fence with
them. Life was easy with us if we pied
form we suspended till next week, and
we always suspended every now and then
when the fishing Vas good, and explained
it by the illness Of the editor, a paltry ex-
cuse, because that kind Of q paper was
just as we'll off with sick editor as a we'll
one, and better off with dead cne than
with either OF them. He was full of
blessed egotism and placid self~import~
ance but he didn't know as much as
Sem quad. He never set any type except
in the rush OF the last day, and then he
would smouch all the poetry, and leave
the rest to sjefl7 for the solid takes. He
wrote with impressive flatulence and soar
ing confidence upon the vastest subjects;
but putting aims gifts OF wedding cake,
salty ice cream, abnormal watermelons,
and sweet potatoes the size Of your leg
was his best hold He was always poet
"a kind Of poet of the Carriers Address
breed-and whenever his intellect suppu-
rated, and he read the result to the print
ers and asked for their opinion, they were