Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser., 1890-06-13
IT'S THE PRooF.READER.
A Defense of the Much.Blamed "Intelli.
gent COmpOsitor.'

gent COlnpOSttOr.
The intelligent compositor" is the
man who is supposed to make all the
mistakes which occur in the printing of
Il newspaper. writes Dominick O'Con-
nor in the Union. Every newspaper
has one. He is the scapegOat of the
establishment. He is damned alike by
the publisher. editor, contributor and
reader. He does not appear to have
any friends. therefore, it is safe to
blame him for any blunder that may be
made. and they Ill do it with wonder
full unanimitv.
With all of these gentlemen, says
one. the compositor has no relations.
They are at liberty to abuse him all
they like. He does not care; he knows
them not. The one exception is the
proof-reader. With him the compost
tor is at war-a never-ending, ire
pressible conflict, which began with the
first proof-reader and will continue
until the last newspaper has gone to
press.
But the conflict is one-sided. The
proof-reader has it all his own way.
He bas somehow won the confidence of
the public, and he abuses the compost
tor TO his hearts content and the pub
lie seems to believe him. There are
two sides to every question, however.
and because the compositor meekly ac-
cepts all this blame it does not follow
that it is always his due.
well remember the night set up
review in which occurred the quotation
from Gray's ''Elegy:" Far from the
madding crowd" The proof-reader
marked it ''maddenipg." went in to
see him about it. He laughed at me in
superior sort of way. and said there
was no such word as 'madding." l
tried to tell him about poetic license.
but he knew as much about poetic Ii
censc as he did about Greek. Argu-
ment only made him angry, and he
loftily asked me il wanted his situa-
ton. l beat an ignominious retreat,
and went out and bumped my head
against the wal! several times to
cool off. one Of my fcllow-compositors
remarking with hypocritical sympathy:
You ought to know better than to talk
Choctaw TO Chinaman."
An amusing blunder-for which the
compositor received the entire blame
happened on the Press" several years
ago. in an editorial by Colonel Forney.
Like shaking a red rag at a bull" is a
quotation which any school-boy ought
to recognize at u glance; yet because
tramp typo, unacquainted with the
Coloners flowing ehirography. made
bed bug" out of ''red rag" il escaped
the eagle eye of the proof-reader and
appeared so in the paper. What the
4 Il h., H. ssafr
the next morning has never been
eiTroniciett, to.t ;,e discharged tris cutirc
force of printers-but saved his proof
reader.
You write an article about Magis-
trate South, and you see the proof.
There it is-South. plain as day. You
pick up the paper in the morning and
lind it Smith-and damn the compost
tor. Or YOU chronicle the death of
Bucks county statesman and wake
up in the morning and find that he
was from Berks. Whose fault was
that? The compositor's? BY no means.
These are just a few instances which
recur To- memory at the moment. In
each of them the compositor. while not
blamelesS. was much less at fault than
the proof-reader. This is very often
the case. The proof-reader is rarely
revised. In the hurry of preparing for
the press time is everything. Conse-
queutly. while the writer of an article
gets first proof" he seldom gets q
revise" Aud right here is where the
proof-rcader gets in his most deadly
| work.
TO err is human. Compositors are
very human and err more or less. But
proof-readers are not divine by long
WAYS. Ii they were the casus belli
would, to great extent. be removed
but machine" proof-reader-angels
and ministers of grace defend us!-is
answerable for many an egregious
blunder for which the compositor is
blamed.
There are q great many machine
compositors. of course, but the ma
chine proof-rcater is the dandy. l
| have run acro.s him so often that
| have come TO the conclusion that his
| species will never become extinct, and.
| realizing this, now act on the ''similia
similibus curantur" principle. In other
words. l meet machine proof-reading
with machine composition. and while
the result in the days paper may not
always be gratifying to- the editor and
| publisher. it causes me less trouble.
In writing this my object is not to
attack the proof-reader, but to defend
the compositor. who has never yet at
least to my knowledge. had an open
| defender, and also to remove the prev
alent impression that he is an un
mItigated scouudrel. who will do moth
ing right that he can possibly do wrong