The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1888-06-08
BIG SHOW BILLS.
A CHAT WITH THE FATHER or
PINE WOOD ENGRAVING.

The Old Fashioned Circus Pictures Sup
planted by Lithography-A Famous
Hundred Sheet Bm'--The Cost Of POST
crs--supcriorlty Of the Lithograph.
"Just as the numerous processes
have crowded lockwood engraving to the
wall" said an old show printer the other
day, "lithography 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 l,
not being photographer, and having a
good deal invested In the old fashion, de-
plore the change, but cannot shut my
eyes TO 1t, 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 hs
still retains his old time skill. He does
not, however, attribute the lack Of de-
mand for his work to q decline in the
business, but to other causes that, upon
analyzation, in themselves demonstrate
that decline. He says: ~ was the first
man to use the pine board for show cuts,
and began doing 80 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 softer wood, it was much
more easily worked, with proper tools,
than the hard mahogany, which soon
went out of use altogether. l do not
recognize that there is any less pine wood
engraving now than there used to be; but
1t is no longer the business 1t used to be.
That Is because the printers, greedy to
monopolize the whole work, got to con-
tracing to furnish pictures by artists and
engravers In 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." - 'tIl e..
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 lithographic
work, such as one, two and three sheet
bills, for the cheapness Of skilled labor
gives the European photographer the ad-
vantage; but when 1t 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 1872
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, thirtytwo sheet bill that made a
sensation throughout the country. Wher-
ever 1t appeared the small shows infesting
the land fed before 1t in dismay. Subse-
Qusntly 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"
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 $40 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 since at
tempted to rival that mammoth produc-
tion. Very probably Autographed poster
Of equal size could be made now at less
cost, for since then the expense of this
work has been greatly reduced, but when
it is remembered that for each individual
one of the hundred sheets composing it
an average of say four separate color
printings would be required, making 400
in all, 1t will readily be understood that
1t would still be very expensive show
bill.
Barnum & Bailey, who are the largest
customers for photographic printing in the
world, are now using no posters of more
else has any so large. But their orders
for the season of 1888 amount to 500, 900
for / ,480, 900 sheets.
The expense Of Autographed show bills
has been vastly reduced since they first
were introduced. Then the Strobridge
firm charged sixty cents sheet worked
in five colors) for 5000 sheet lots, took
five months TO fill one such order, and lost
money on 1t. Now such have been the
improvements in production that, notwith-
standing large augmentation in wages and
other expenses, the same sort of work is
done for eight cents a sheet, in forty eight
hours, and money is, presumably at least,
made on it. Pine wood pictures cost only
six cents a sheet, and are still clung to by
Forepaugh, most of the small circuses
and the class Of theatrical troupes known
as 'barn stormers" and ''fly by nights, u
but showmen generally affirm that the
Autographed posters, aside from theil
superior beauty and effectiveness, are more
economical, mainly because OF the weather
resisting ability of the much better sort Of
paper upon which they are printed. The
paper for lithograph posters is made Of O
wood pulp imported from Sweden-bi
sulphide hemlock pulp, as 1t Is technically
called. The wood pulp made here Is from
the grinding Of the timber into small
particles, but in Sweden process is EN-
ployed that tears the wood into Fragments
preserving longer fiber and yielding 8
much stronger paper. Aside from ths
question of economy, there can be nj
question of the superiority OF the litho
graph over the pine wood picture. Tbi
former preserves the artists work to al
infinitely greater degree, and its colors
while more brilliant and-through tn,
blending Of primary into secondary tint!
far more varied, are at the same tim,
softer, more natural, and vastly NOR
effective than could be attained by the oil,
process.-New York Sun.