Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1886-02-11
y1irainia free gress.
". ". B. GALLAHER, Editor.
CharIesto,cn, Jefferson County, TVest Va.
February II, 1886.
MARK TWAIN 4 CUB PRINTER,
He Delights the TypOthet1 irith ConipOs-
ing Room Memories.

ing ROOM memories.
Typothete, an association of New
Workers having more or less TO do with
types, commemorated the birthday Of
Benjamin Franklin by dinner at Del
monica's, which was enjoyed by over two
hundred guests.
Mark Twain's text was The Compos-
itor." This is what he said:
81 am staggered by the compliments
which have been lavished and poured out
on me by my friend on my right (Mr.
Bailey. | am as proud Of this compli
ment as | 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
respectable assemblage of gentlemen like
this, and confessed that | have told the
truth once If | could return the COM
pliment | would do it. [ Laughter at
Mr.. Bailey's expense.]
"The chairman's historical reminiscen-
ces Of Guttenburg have caused me
to fall into "reminiscences, for / my
self am something of an antiqui-
ty. Ldughter.] 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 thirty-fve years ago. |
was no stranger to him. knew him
well. ! built his fire for him in the win
ter mornings | brought his water from
the village pump; | swept out his office
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 matter and if he wasn't
there to see. dumped it all with the 'pi'
on the imposing stone-for that was the
furtive fashion of the cub, and was a
cub. wetted down the paper Saturdays
and / turned it Sundays-for this was a
country weekly I rolled, | washed the
rollers, ! washed the forms, folded the
papers, | carried them around at dawn
Thursday mornings, enveloped the pa
pers that were for the mail-we had q
hundred town subscribers and three hun
dred country ones the town subscri-
bers paid in groceries and the country
ones in cabbages and cordwood-whe
they paid at all, which was merely some
times, and then we always stated the fact
in the paper, and gave them a 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 as to
how it was to be edited dictated its
opinions, marked out its course for it, and
every time the boss failed to connect, he
stopped his paper. We were just infest-
ed with critics. and we tried to satisfy
them all over. We had one subscriber
who paid cash, and he was more trouble
to Us than all the rest. He bought u,
once a year, body and soul, for two dol
lars and a-half. He used to modify our
politics every which way, and he made
us change our religion four times in five
years. II we ever tried to reason with
him, he would threaten 10 stop his paper,
and, Of course, that meant bankruptcy
and destruction. That man used to write
articles a column and a half long loaded
long primer, and sign them Junius OF
'Veritas 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 mind-which was a gilded
figure Of speech, because he hadn't any
and order it to be left out We couldn't
stand such a waste as that; we couldn't
afford bogus in that office; 30 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 a cir.
Gus, or a baptizing, we knocked off for
half a day; and then to make up for
short matter we would turn over ads =
turn over the whole page and duplicate
it. The other bogus was deep philosoph-
ical stuff, which we judged nobody ever
read; so We kept galley OF it standing
and kept on slapping the same old batche;
Of It in, every now and then, til ii got
dangerous. Also, in the early days Of
the telegraph we used to econonlize Oh the
1--WE. We p.cko5 u. 10 tins Ls'