Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-09-22

THE ANClEAT COPYIST
Driven Entirely Out of Existence by the
lntrodurtion of the Typewriter,

Driven Entirely Out of Existence by the
Introduction of the Typewriter.
The Introduction of the typewriter has
driven the ancient copyist entirely out of ex-
istence Before modern mechanical inge-
nuity devised this means of overcoming the
deficiencies of bad handwriting there was
quite a trade driven by the scrivener. In
the copying of plays especially he found CON
slant employment. Each theatre usually
had a copvist attached to its staff Some
times he was the prompter. who thus added
to his emolumentS, and Mt others an entirely
independent member of the company. When
plav was accepted several clean copies had
to be made of the complete work, one for the
prompter's use and others for preservation
in case of accident. Each part had also to
be copied off for each individual player and
the directions for the carpenter and property
man besides. Altogether the coryist In a
large theatre had his hands full throughout
the season. Independent of the theatre
were, also, men who had made trade
of copying plays, legal documents and
manuscripts for publication. That there
were quite a number of these might he in
ferred from the fact that at one time they
had sort of an exchange in Union Square,
where they used to gather daily and very
often work among the beer mugs on the
tables.
Indeed, beer was as essential fluid to the
professional copyist as ink He was, as a
rule, a decidedly snuffy and grubby person,
| given to chronic alcoholism, and as careless
in his attire as he was irregular in his habits.
| Most of these men had been, fancy, actors,
| but if they acted no better than they wrote
| do not wonder mt their change of profession.
| Nowadays we have altered all this. There is
a typewriters desk in every hotel offic-
| typewriting establishments all over ~
| You now have your manuscript converted
into book even before it goes to the prin-
| ter's hands Indeed, there are publishers in
this city who send manuscripts to the type
writer TO be copied in order to save the ex-
! pense of the innumerable corrections by the
printers which would be necessitated by the
bad handwriting Of the author There is a
firm of young women who make a speciality
of handling manuscripts of this sort, and
who somehow or other contrive to extract
sense, as well as dollars for themselves, out
of manuscript beside which Horace Greeley S
was copperplate.
In addition to books which are printed
and plays which are acted there are, as may
be imagined a good many that never see the
light of public day. Indeed, the plays which
are acted and the books which are sent to
the press are but a drop in the huge bucket
of production. Consequently the prosperity
OF the tyl ewriter cannot be gagged by the
amount of matter actually made public
know one woman who makes q business Of
copying plays alone, and who keeps from
three to half dozen girls continually busy
She once informed me that ont of some hun
dreds of plays which she had copied during
the year she had, although she followed tn,
dramatic papers very closely, as matter O
curiosity, only discovered about a dozen tina
had been put on the stage. The others hal
been consigned to the limbo of rejection tina
holds so many unfulfilled dreams.-A1fre'
Trumble in Pittsburg Bulletin.