The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1891-07-16
THE TRAMP PRINTER.
\ Pea Picture of One Who Represents a
Species of Queer and Quaint PhIloso-
pliers and Shre~d Critics.

| From the Palestine (Tex.) Advocate.
He walked silently in. We knew
| him the moment we raised our eyes
and saw him standing there. In fact,
We had been expecting him he nearly
always comes when we are in just such
a strait and needing him. He always
wears the same style of clothes, coat of
one kind and pants Of another; he
| hasn't any vest; his shoes are worn
out and run down at the heels and his
hat is battered and dusty. There are
spots over his waistband and his new
| paper collar is the only fresh, white
thing about him and it looks as though
he had just put it on with soiled fin
gers. He is pale, weak-eyed and pre-
maturely gray-haired; he looks as
though he had never known regular
hours, either for eating or sleeping !;
and he must have come thousands of
miles and been coming ever since he
was boy.
His starting point was 50 far away
and so long ago that he has almost for
gotten when or where it was but we
an idea that it must have been when
his mother buttoned his little blue
shirthand around his white, boyish
throat, put on his little white hat, and
sent him TO work in the printing office.
How proud he was when he went
home that first night and showed his
new brass rule, and tells mother he
had learned all the boxes, and has
free ticket to the circus next week, and
the editor gave him big piece of we'd
ding cake, a part Of which he had
brought home for the baby, and if he
sets up column in one day next week
he can go fishing on Saturday. Yes,
somewhere about there was the COM
mencement of his long journey, and
here he is now, perhaps two-thirds on
the way. He asks: "What's the
show for a sit" We give him case,
and by and by he says he feels faint,
and asks if we can't lend him quar-
ter, he hasn't had any breakfast yet.
! We know his weakness, and, as we
need his work, we go down him with
him and order some break fast for him
at the nearest restaurant.
| When he comes back he looks hap
pier and better able to work. In the
evening, when he goes to distributing
his case, he reconuts the history of his
late places of employment. He knows
| the circulation and amount of business
of every paper in the State, and just
why the Dispatch suspended, and why
| the Advocate sold out to the Courier.
He is we'll acquainted with the un-
known editor Of the Thunderer, and
has friends On the editorial force of all
the leading journals of the country.
BY and by he whistles low an air from
the Italian opera, and in reply to a
4ueSLlOu ue duSh CTS Will d LdLlu iuO-
tation. He stays with US a week, and
we grow to like him more and more
every day. He has read everything
from Shakespeare and Ruskin to Mark
Twain and Bill Arp. He knows more
about our laws, National and State,
than the best lawyers in the city. He
if we'll acquainted with the life of every
eminent person of his age, and is per-
feet encyclopedia ofcurrent events.
But we cannot afford to keep him
any longer, so we may pay him of, and
again he starts on that long road that
leads-not to home, for ne has none
not to the society of intelligent people
like himself, for outside of the printing
office he is unknown maybe back to
night work on some city daily, or, if
too worn and old for that, rapid de-
scent from one country office to ano-
ther, with whiskey and laudanum for
companions, to an unmarked grave by
some lonely wayside.