Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1890-03-27
TOM IN THE PRESS.
How . Philadelphia Evening Paper Los
One of Its Editions.

=
One of Its Editions.
Newspaper Office cats have been
tabled for their voracity and misciefs
making propensity of getting into for
bidden places. ''Ben," the brindle
mouser of the Evening Bulletin, outdid
any of his predecessors, however, by
stopping the press the other afternoon,
says the Philadelphia Public Ledger.
Unluckily. for himself, he accomplished
this feat only by sacrificing his own
life. There was no four-o'clock edition
of the Bulletin, and, instead, subscrib-
ers received the five-o'clock edition. It
all came about through a frightened
cats escapade. "Ben" was just q year
old. He is said to have been named
after one of the pressmen. ben" (the
cat) was a noted ratter, and kept the
press-room cleared of the vermin which
might otherwise have preyed on the
paste and the glue used in making the
press rollers. His favorite spot for an
afternoon nap, between editions"
was on a foot-board alongside of the
four-cylinder Hoe press.
The forms were lifted on the press
and locked securely. Pressmen Thomas
McSorley, John Conner. Frank Conner,
BENJAMIN Esler and Thomas Hopson
took their places prepared to ''feed the
sheets" to the press, and Engineer
Jacob Lodge started the machinery at
ten minutes to four o'clock. "Ben,"
startled from his dreams of possible en-
counters with myriads of rats, sprang
to his feet and attempted to make .
short cut across the lower foot-board Of
the press to reach the opposite side.
Voracious tapes carried cat and sheets
of imprinted paper together downward,
and then upward. There was q quick,
Sudden jar that shook the press; the ink
rollers appeared to spring from their
journals, and were bent by the obstacle
they had encountered, and then a hard
er jar followed as a mass of paper
emerged between the main and smaller
cylinders, and there was flung out by
the flies on the opposite side of the
press very much f1attened-out edition
of ''Ben," about yard long and resem-
bling a small 1oor-rug. The shock
threw off the driving-be1t and the press
stopped.
The forms had to be lifted from the
cylinder and carefully scrubbed to re-
move the adhering fur and fragments of
'tBen." 1t was also found that the ink
rollers had got bent. As result, alto
gether, the Bulletin lost an edition.
''This is not the first cat that lost its
life in that press,' remarked Business
Manager w. F. McCully, after enduring
cloud of puns about catastrophe, !"
''cataclvsm," and the like. Twenty
years ago another cat went to sleep in
side of that big cylinder, and awoke
after the press began running. She at
tempted to escape and was beheaded.
Her gore ran over the paper and spoiled
the whole edition. Our Mr.. Peacock
had a rat-terrier which chased a rat
under the press one day and got on the
belt. The dog was carried around tho
belt and killed.
''During the war I worked as night
pressman on the Inquirer. We used to
print off one side and then wait couple
of hours to print off the second. During
the interval between running of the
first and second sides a rat got into the
big cylinder to gnaw bone. When the
press started he tried to get out, but
was caught by the tapes and carried
around the cylinder and mashed as
fiat as pancake. He spoiled any guam
tity of sheets of paper. We had to pick
out the remains from the type with
needles, and it was frightfully tedious
job, remember.