The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-08-18
NOT IN A HURRY FOR ITEMS
Newspaper Men Who Worked on Slow
Methods and with Limited Facilities.
Some Of the Queer Mishaps That Occurred in
Editing and Reporting When the Indian
apolis Dailies Were in Their Infancy.


morning. The history of Monday night
never appeared till Wednesday morning.
however interesting or important the incl
dents might be. The consequence was that
there was no ''locar' news, nothing that
was not known to everybody. in any issue
of either paper. Nobody read them for
news, at least of home affairs, and mail
news was about all that was going. That
more regarded in those days than 1t is
now, or has been since the telegraph came
cranking in" as "Hotspur" ssys, and cut
out the vitals of it! But . year or two be-
fore the end of this primitive state OF
things a single break was made in the old
line of delay that rather amazed h slow
goers of the village, then just moving out
into the ranks of progress.
One summer evening about dusk, in 1852,
the Eagle machine-works' OF Hasselman
q Vinton, on Meridian street, at the
creek, took fire somehow, and made
about the most disastrous c~onfiagration
that had ever occurred in the place. The
volunteer fiermen worked as well as Dien
ever did or could, and they saved some very
valuable new machinery, but all the steam
engines and firemen we have now could
not have averted a most damaging blow
to what was then our most promising man.
ufactory. 1t was near midnight when the
fire was put out beyond the danger OF
a second outbreak. Mr.. j. III. McNeely,
since we'll known as editor of the Evans
vile Journal, was local editor, under MIR.
Defrees, on the Journal here-a first-rate
practical printer as well as editor. On his
- Al - -..a Ah0 old
Journal Office, on Pennsylvania street, OPP
pOSite the Branch Bank, aud found that
the paper had just gone to press. He
stopped it, took Off the form and unlocked
it, went upstairs to the c0mpOsing-r0Om,
.'set up" o brief account of the fire, put it
in the form and set the press to work on the
first item of city news of the night that
had ever appeared in the morning. 1t was
so strange, SO novel, 80 unexpected, that
it was a matter of general talk all day:
Nowadays the talk would all be "cussing"
lished next day.
The larger offices now have "proof-read-
ers," specially assigned to that work, and
the amount of matter published makes 1t
necessary. In the first days of the daily
press no such special duty was known or
needed. The Journal, as remarked in
to five columns of new matter a
day, most of which, all the "reform"from a
country into a city condition in 1854, was
reprint and read In proof by the foreman.
After the change that produced regularly
in the morning the occurrences of tie pre-
vious night. The "leaded matter usually
ran up to two columns, which was read by
the editor, while the foreman read the re-
print, with a frequent revision by the edit
or. The paper. was commonly. got out In
pretty good shape, geographically, but
sometimes very ludicrous plumbers were
made, some of which are remembered by
the "Old hands" till this day.
The p~remium-list of the first county fair
here was made up by the editor from the
reports in the ~secretary's Office, and. being
hurriedly and not very legibly. So it hap
pened that young Willard ~Vandegrift-
whose father, Benjamin, was not only a
f~irst-rate cOmpositor,. but an unusually we'll
Informed man, and the favorite typo" of
Henry Ward Beecher when the latter was
editor of the Indiana Farmer-set up. his
part of the list badly. Among other blum
ders, he had a Prize for the best eight
quarts of beans" instead of the best eight
yards Of Jeans" Another Young comp"
tie into national land trade" But
ever made on the Journal or
any other paper was the work of a good
.compositor, except as he was assaulted by
occasional fits Of carelessness. The tele-
graphic report Of the fight between the
Merrimac and the Monitor was provided by
the editor with q particularly gorgeous
"displayed' head. The comp" in question
set it up and sent in the proof as a fight
between "the maniac M the minister
The editors copy" was no particularly
good in those days, with all the work to do,
and the brief telegraphic market reports,
which he had to write out from a cipher
dispatch. were apt to be particularly bad.
One day a .tramping comp" came to the
office while still Oh pennsylvania street, and
wanted work enough to enable him to get
on to Cincinnati. John Dennis, father of
Charles, Of the Journal, held the lad" case
and got the markets as "nonpareil" mat
day. The market report bothered him, but
he got through and sent in the proof. The
editor covered both margins of the proof
slip with corrections and then pasted strips
of paper. on each side and covered them.
The sub" tried to correct his work, but
made such little Roadway that he finally
gave it up and let another man take it with
his days pay, and added thirty cents
besides, so that a days work not only paid
hin nothing. but brought him in debt.
During the time that the Journal re-
tanned its location OF Pennsylvania street
the postoffice occupied the greater part of
the lower story, and a fire broke ont here
one night hat damaged the ~postofice con-
siderably and the Journal office slightly. 1t
was the only serious accident that ever
befel the institution though a serious
and fatal accident was an accompaniment
of its work on the new building In 1890,
on the southeast corne of Circle street and
Meridian. The cellar excavation sank deep
enough to reach the fine loose sand that un-
derlies much of the city site, and the boys
got TO playing in this sand, and pulling it
out from under the solid stratum above to
make caves for their sports. One of the
sons of the late Mr.. lockwood, while en-
gagged in this fun, was killed by the fall of
a large block of the hard soil, which had
become detached in some way. The north
wall of MI. Beck's Ia brother of Samuell
gunsmith shop vas undermined by the
Journals cellar and fell into it.
The only disastrous accident that ever
befell the daily papers of the city occurred
to the Sentinel in the spring of 1857. Joseph
j. Bingham and John Doughty bought it
and removed it to the Capital House,
previously one of the leading hotels, on the
north side of Washington street, nearly
midway between Meridian and the alley
east Of it. This had been recon-
structed and improved into the
most ~commodious and largest print
ing establishment in the State. The re-
nova had just been completed and the
printers were just getting up matter for
the first issue of the paper, when the boiler
of the press engine, new and deemed per-
fectly safe, exploded n little after dusk, or
of the building. containing the cases and
presses all TO pieces, and tumbling the sec
Ond floor, with all the type, cases, imposing
stones and other apparatus, dowa upon the
first with its presses. crushing them and
setting fire to the woodwork. A young
man named Holman, who attended the en-
CINE, was killed, and several Others were