The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1886-04-28
A CUB PRINTER.
Mark Twain Delights the Typothetse
with Composing Room Memories.

{ WIN l1C
day of franklin by a dinner at Del
monico's. After the spread, Presi
dent Martin. one of New York's old
est printers, led off with reminiscen
ces OF the historic maryels of typo.
graphy, and Isaac H. Bailey, ono,
a printers devil, spoke for Ben
: Franklin. He said that if Franklin
/ were alive he would no doubt enjoy
. the extrayaganzas of Mark Twain
amp enjoy his economies of the
truth.
Mark Twain was there. and hi:
text was THE Compositor.n This is
what he said:
Il am staggered by the compli
ments which have been lavisheC
and poured out Oh me by my friend
on my right My. Baily). l am 50
proud of this compliment as l an
staggered. Ii is uncommon IN my
Iexperience. 1t the first time thai
anybody in my experience has stood
up ID the presence Of q large and
respectable audience that l haYt
told the truth once. If | could re
turn the compliment | would do it
Laughter at the expense of Mr.
Bailey.
THE Chairman s historical remin-
Iiscences of Gutenbug have caused
me to fall into the "reminiscences. FOL
l myself am something OF al an
I ti1uity. Al! 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 five years ago.
| knew him well. / built his fire
for him in the winter 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 ana
the broken ones among the hell
matter; ; and if he wasn't there to
see, | dumped it all with the 'pi' on
/ .he imposing stOne-for that was
the furtive fashion of the cub, and |
was cub. | wetted down the paper
Saturdays, | turned II sundays
FOR this was = country weekly; | roll
ed, | washed the rollers. | washed
the forms, L folded the papers, | car
ried them around at dawn Thursday
mornings. l enveioped the papers
that went fos the mail-we had one
hundred town subscribers and three
hundred and fifty country ones; the
town subscribers paid in groceries
and the country in cabbage and
cord -wood-when they paid at all,
which was merely sometimes, and
then we always stated the fact in the
paper, and gave them a puff and if
We forgot 1t they stopped the paper.
Every man on the town list helped
to edit the thing that Is, he gave
orders how it was to be edited die
tated its opinions. marked out its
course for lt.and every time the boss
failed to connect he stopped MS pa
per. We were Just infested with
critics, and We tried to satisfy them
all over. We had one subscriber
who paid cash, and he vas more
trouble to us than ali the est He
bought Us once = year, body and
soul, Tor two dollars. He used to
modify our politics every which way
and he made US change our religion
four times in five years. If We ever
tried to reason with him be would
threaten to stop his paper, and, of
course, that meant bankruptcy and
destruction. That man used to
write articles a column and d half
long, loaded long primer, and sign
them 'Junius or 'Veritas' or 'Nox
Populi, or some other high-sOund
ing rot f.; and then, after it was set up
he would come in, say he had chang
ed his mind-which was q gilded
figure of epeech, 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, so we always took the LEADS
out, altered the signature and credit
ed 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 a bar
becue, or a circus, or a baptising, We
knocked off for halfa day and then
to make up for short time we would
turn our ads'-turn over the whole
page and duplicate it. Tne other
bogus was deep philosophical stuff,
which we judged nobody ever read ;
so We kept a galley of it standing,
and kept on slappiug the same old
patches of it in,every now and then.
until IL became dangerous
Also, in the early days of tie tele-
graph We used to eco1omize on the
news. We picked out the items
that were pointless aud barren of in
formation and stood them on a gal
ley and changed the dates and local
ities and used them over and over
again till the public interest in them
was worn to the boue. We marked
the ads. but We seldom paid any at
tention to the marks afterward so
the life OF I'd ad and If was
eternal. have seen a I'd.
notice Of a oheriffs 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 medicines stereo-
types, and we used to fence with
them. Life was easy with US; if we
pied a form we suspended till next
week, and we always suspended
every now and then when the fish
ing was good. and explained it by
the illness of the editor, paltry ex
cuse, because that kind of q paper
was Just as well off with a sick edi-
tor as a well one, and better of with .
a dead one than with either of them. 4
He was full of blessed egotism and
placid self importance, but he didn't 4
know as much as a 3-em 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 'jeff" for the solid
takes: He wrote with impressive
fiatulence and soaring confidence
upon the vastest subjects but puff