San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-04-23
BIG SHOW BILLS.
A CHAT WITH THE FATHER OF
PINE WOOD ENGRAVING.
The Old Fashioned Circus Pictures Sup
planted by Lithography-A Famous
"Hundred Sheet Bill''-The Cost of Post
ers-SuperiOrity of the Lithograph.

"Hundred Sheet Bill"-The Cost of Post
ers-Superiority of the Autograph.
"Just as the numerous processes
have crowded lockwood engraving to the
wall" said an old show printer the other
day, photography is steadily supplanting
pine wood engraving. Already the best
theatrical and circus orders are for litho-
graphs, and wood work has come to be
looked upon as cheap, second rate, and
consequently undesirable. OF course 1,
not being a photographer, and having a
good deal invested in the old fashion, de-
plore the change, but l cannot shut my
eyes to it, and do not try to do so as do
some of my friends among the old engrav-
ers and printers. In fact, pine wood work
has reached lower position relatively
than lockwood work has"
Mr.. James w. Morse, the father of pine
wood engraving, now rs years of age, is
doing little work any longer, though he
still retains his old time skill. He does
not, however, attribute the lack of de-
mand for his work to a decline in the
business, but to other causes that, upon
analyZation, in themselves demonstrate
that decline. He says: 81 was the first
man to use the pine board for show cuts,
and began doing so about thirty-five years
ago. Before that time these large pictures
were all cut on mahogany, using the end
of the wood, as lockwood is used and only
printing in black was done. / first intro
duced the use of cOlOrs, and cut the tint
blocks for them on fiat, smooth pine
boards. Very soon | found that | could
use the pine for the black print also, and
that being a softer wood, it was much
more easily worked, with proper tools,
than the hard mahogany, which soon
went out of use altogether. | do not
recognize that there is any less pine wood
engraving now than there used to be; but
it is no longer the business it used to be.
That is because the printers, greedy TO
mOnopoliZe the whole work, got to con-
tracing to furnish pictures by artists and
engrdvers i'll their employ, and then, by
competition with each other, ran prices
down so that the compensation of artists
and engraVers was reduced to the lowest
possible point. The demand no longer is
for men of exceptional ability, but for
cheap mediocrity.'
1t is a somewhat curious fact that the
American makers of fine large litho-
graphic pictures, after importing the
artists to do their drawing and the stones
to print from, and the inks to print
with, and the pulp for the paper to print
upon, still are able to compete with Eu-
rOpean photographers on their own ground
and to fill extensive orders in Europe
Australia and India. They cannot do so
in the production of small photographic
work, such as one, two and three sheet
bills, for the cheapness of skilled labor
gives the European photographer the ad-
vantage; but when it comes to the making
of huge bills, of say twenty, thirty or
forty sheets, then the field is practically
monopolized by American enterprise
The largest show bill made prior to 1879
consisted of no more than eighteen sheets.
In that year, however, James Torrey, the
old pine wood engraver and printer, got
out for Barnum's show, in its second
year, thirty-two sheet bill that made a
sensation throughout the country. Wher-
ever it appeared the small shows infesting
the land fled before it in dismay. Subse-
quently many larger posters, printed
from wood, made their appearance, but
none had such startling effect as that.
Coles circus was the first to employ
Autographed posters, in 1881, and in 1882
got out its famous hundred sheet bill, O."
which covered a space twelve feet high by
ninety-siX feet long, the largest poster of
this kind ever produced. There were
only 1000 of those huge posters produced,
and their cost was so each, although the
Strobridge company, their makers, are
said to have made them without profit
for the sake of demonstrating what they
could achieve. Nobody has siuce at