Sacramento daily record-union., 1890-07-27
ORIGINAL DEFECTIVE

it caresses the backs and CLUES to place
were as strong as itself they would stand
on their own merits. Its companions, the
broken-backed shears, hang idle for a few
moments on naii-a rare sweet interval,
for theirs is an active life, wading through
many miles of paper each edition. A
Washington press during the summer
months reeks with the blood of sacrificed
victims. A column rule cleans the shin
Ing skin and scarlet heart is laid bare
before mob of hungry printers.
Next to an Indian printer can hide
more watermelon than any known animal.
The candidate, shirt agent and book can
vasser are regular visitors. They do not
tarry long. They are strangers here.
Heaven is their home. A foreman, to be a
bowling success, must have the nerves of a
steam plow, and of such happy turn OF
mind as to be unmoved by either grief or
joy. When the editor stops the press to
insert comma we cannot wonder that the
air turns blue, however We will close
the door and leave him alone with his
dead.
There is a fascination about the spider
legged cases and jovial pastepot that few
escape who have once been in their tolls.
The peripatetics who gather no moss can
not withstand happening in and giving a
feeting look around, and have been known
to set some type just for the sake of old
times. With grizzled locks, unshorn
beard, and heart all tattered and torn, he
carries neither scrip nor raiment, but a
sweet memory of home back in New
England-an old low-roofed house, where
the swallows twitter and the vines Chamber
and sweet-faced woman who sleeps under
cover of feecy snow On the smoky
walls he pastes clippings from religious
columns which start off to the tune of
"There is no fock," ETC., etc. He has
been interested in every Office since Adam
was a boy, and can tell the ups and downs
of every journal since it made its bow and
come to stay. He takes real pleasure in
speaking of his familiar terms with men of
note. He has been said to tell of the time
when "me and Ben set up the first pres" "
lie patronizes the young generation of
prints who are so unfortunate as to have a
few hundred years less of journalistic ex-
perience. His case is the refuge when all
are out of Sorts" and his stack of leads is
common property.
The old scare-crow, with toes and elbow
escaping and knees running at large, has
covered every foot of ground from Siskiyou
to San Bernardino. He has seen hopes
rise and fall like the swells of the sea, and
one day when the years were creeping up
in the fifties he owned paper himself and
had home and little wife. Misfor-
tunes never come singly, and they came to
him in shoals. He is a combined diction-
AIRY and encyclopedia, book of reference
not to be despised. When knotty problems
come up, instead of thumbing dusty books,
the unfortunate is told to " ask Bill" and
Bill will respond with an answer without
error. No historian has more correct set
of dates and taks greater pride in dis
playing them. Time and toddy have red
dened his nose and whitened his hair, and
though the little poems he improvises are
set aside by the foreman, his tender heart
bears no malice and he whistles and chews
and is happy.
Each typo has his own idea of decora-
tive art, and the walls of a dingy room
look like a village fence in circus time.
The alley decorated with pictures from the
Police Gazette and photos culled from pack
ages of cigarettes annihilated daily, is the
work of a dreamy eyed lad who dropped
in one day with a linen duster and a
weary air, all that remains of jamboree
in an adjoining town. He enjoys novelty
and change of scene. The juicy hilarity.
that is amber in the mug, will claim his
attention, and some fine morning his alley
will know him not
The job printer has his section hung
with the fruits of his labor. His art GAL
lery contains everything from dainty
visiting card to horse poster, and somber
funeral notices hob-nob with the announce
ment of "grand ballp' Between the
calendars and flaming prints are found
hand writings on the wall that would
cause CONSERVATION among nerves stronger
than those OF Belshazzar. In a scrawly
hand will stand: "Swore off to-day, Dec.
25, 1885," and directly under some incred-
ulous sinner will write "rats w There
are volumes in the simple comment of a
word. There are skulls and cross bones
and grinning skeletons, tombstones and
coffins, indicative of the great esteem in
which they hold some companion.
The devil He has been immortalized
in prose and verse, and like his namesake,
is not as black as he is painted. He is
generally jovial little fellow, with
freckled nose and one suspender, who is at
the beck and call of everybody, but who
cheerfully responds. He has no particular
beat. There is no work nor GRANNY he
does not infest. He has solved the labor
probler1-getting the least hard work in
the greatest length of time. To keep his
active brain from effervescing he is put a,
throwing in pi or setting the interesting
articles on Hostetter's Stomach Bitters
He will sit enveloped in a pile of ex-
changes, hunting up the funny columns to
infiict on defenceless auditors, but at the
sound of footstep he coons up high
stool and is hard at work with one aim
and purpose-to earn his three dollars a
week. All honor to the profession and its
professors. A. R. L.