Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1898-01-19
PRINTERS ERRORS.
Innocent MaIice-The Fiendish Behavior Of
Well Meaning Types.


The compositor. casually and uncon-
solously, Is a fellow of infinite humor.
The writers and speakers upon whose
telling arguments or flights of fancy
the compositor exercises his wit may
be annoyed but the general public has
no alloy in the enjoyment OF these
typographical antics. Miss Fannie
Fudge. the youthful genius discovered
by Tom Moore. who used to contribute
to the Poets Corner of The County
Gazette, complained bitterly to her
cousin of the havoc the printers made
of her sense and her rhymes. Though
an angel should write. still tits devils
must print" she explained. Here is
how those devils served her:
But week or two since in my ode to
the spring
Which l meant to have made a most
beautiful thing.
Where 1 talked of the dewdrops from
freshly blown roses
The nasty things made II from freshly
blown noses!'
And once when to please my cross aunt
l had tried
To commemorate some saint of her
clique who'd just died,
Having said he had tak'n up in heaven
his position
They made it he'd taken up to heaven
his physician
The readers of the County Gazette,
no doubt. preferred the amended poem
to the original.
The responsibility for these humors
of the composing room rests sometimes
with the authors vile hand writing;
but 1t Is mainly due to the conditions
under which the compositor works. A
wooden frame Cor case, as II Is known
in the trade) is divided by lodges into
| several receptacles or boxes for the
IA n Tar nf he alt.l, hot
points of punctuation. In one box
there are all "A's" in another all HIS"
and in another all "Y's" and so on; and
| from this case, picking up the letters
one by one as required. the compositor
turns the manuscript into type. Prac-
| ttce enables him to do this not only
with extreme rapidity. but with re-
markable accuracy; but he has often
to deal with what he calls IL foul case
that is, case in which several of the
| letters have got into the wrong boxes
and as he thus unconsciously picks up
| the wrong letter from the right box.
we find oats turned to cats, poets to
posts, arts to rats, jolly TO folly, and
| songs to tongs.
A theatrical critic in a notice of n
| charming young actress whose treat
ment of Portia had afforded him much
made acting easy" That was right
enough, but what the types made him
| say was Her love for Porter" etc A
| compositor who was better acquainted
with the geography of the west than
with biblical lore set up the phrase,
From Alpha to Omega" as From AL
ton to Omaha" and possibly found
himself compelled to start for those
| places next morning. In the
early half of the present CEN
tury 1t was announced in n
London newspaper that Sir Robert
1 !, u,.t.r f,.;.
ing peasants in Ireland" whereas the
minister and his friends We're only in
| dulging in the comparatively harmless
pastime of pheasant shooting. Shortly
| after the battle of Inkerman one of the
morning papers Informed its readers
| that after n desperate struggle the
enemy was repulsed with great laugh
| ter" The omission of n single letter
| has rarely, perhaps, played more havoc
with a subject which was certainly no
laughing matter.
It must have been the very printers
| devil himself who represented very
worthy advocate of the cause of female
suffrage us eHhorting her hearers to
maintain their tights" What the
| bridesmaids at n recent wedding must
| have thought when they read that they
| all worn "handsome breeches, the gift
| of the bridegroom, one can only guess.
But whatever their thoughts may have
been at seeing their pretty brooches
| thus transformed, their language at
| any rate cannot, we may assume have
matched that Of the politician who read
| the following comment on one OF his
speeches: "Them asses believed him"
| Possibly he was not much consoled by
being assured that the reporter had
merely wished to signify that the
masses believed him" on another oc-
| casion reporter wrote; AT these
words the entire audience rose and rent
the air with their snouts." The COM
positor had set I'm shouts correctly, but
| had not observed that the top uf the
| n" was broken OFF. An enthusiastic
| editor began his leading article on n
local election campaign with the phrase,
| "rhe battle is now opened" Unfortun-
| ately the compositor transformed bat
| tie into bottle, and his readers said
they had suspected 1t all along,
| MIR. Gladstone. MS IL well known. Is
| always lavish OF his admiration for the
| new books sent him by aspiring authors
| or crafty publishers. but he has rarely
| expressed II moro omphaticolly than
| when he wrote to the publisher of
| certain novel. I'VE have not allowed
one person 10 leave the house without
| reading It," A newspaper, recording
| this testimonial to the merits OF the