The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1890-05-15
IT'S THE PROOF.READER.
A Defense of the Much-Blamed 'Inteni'
gent Compositor."

!
man who is supposed to make all the
mistakes which occur in the printing OF
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 all do it with wonder
| full unanimity.
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 has 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 4
review in which occurred the quotation
from Grays ''Elegy:" Far from the
madding crowd" The proof-reader
marked it 'maddening" | went in to
see him about it. He laughed at me in
a superior sort of way, and said there
was no such word as 'madding.n
tried to tell him about poetic license,
but he knew as much about poetic Ii
cense as he did about Greek. Argu-
ment only made him angry, and he
loftily asked me if | wanted his situa-
ton. l beat an ignominious retreat.
and went out and bumped my head
against the wall several times to
cool off, one of my fellow-compositors
remarking with hypocritical sympathv:
You ought to know better than to talk
Choctaw to Chinaman.''
An amusing blunder-for which the
coppositor received the entire blame
happened on the Press several years
ago, in an editorial by Colonel Forney.
Like shaking red rag at a bull'' is a
quotation which any school-boy ought
to recognize at glance; yet because a
tramp typo, unacquainted with the
Coloners flowing chirography, made
bed bug" out of red rag" it escaped
the eagle eye of the proof-reader and
appeared so in the paper. What the
Colonel said when he read his article
the next morning has never been
chronicled, but he discharged his entire
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 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-
quently, while the writer of an article
gets ''tirss proof" he seldom gets a
revise And right here is where the
proof-reader gets in his most deadly
work.
To err is human. ComDositors are
very human and err more or less. But
proof-readers are not divine by a long
ln l,,ll
would, to great extent. be removed
but machine" proof-reader-ang
and ministers of grace defend us!-is
answerable for many an egregious
bluuder for which the compositor is
blamed.
There are a great many machine
compositors. of course, but the ma
chine proof-reader is the dandy. l
have run across 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, aud also to remove the prev
alent impression that he is an un-
mltigated scoundrel, who will do moth
ing right that he can possibly do wrong.
Il cawnt for the life OF me see,"
said Gus De jay. what some people
were put on earth foh?" My dear
Mr.. De JAY" said Miss Pepperton,
You shouldn't cultivate this unfortu-
nate habit of introspection. y Wash
ington Post.
Boston Mother-"You won't 60 to
Heaven, Willie, if you are such a
naughty boy" Willie-''O, well, l
don't expect to 90 everywhere. l went
to the circus yesterday and to the the
ater the day before. Besides, I'm in
Boston. ~ Y. Tribune.
Miss Rosebud-"O. WELL YOU must