The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1898-04-01

lar genius in this direction. And thus
we advocate that, subject to authority
its organization and working should be
left to them. and that they form an
auxiliary though non combatant por-
tion of every fighting force. having
equal rank, pay, and standing, with
the comhatant part, seeing that their
duties rc1Hirc equal courage and capac-
ity, and their usefulness is beyond all
reward
HUMORS OF THE
COMPOSING-RO
The responsibility for humors OF the
composing-room, explains writer in
.Nacmi1/on's Jnyn=ine, rests sometimes
with the authors vile handwriting;
but it is mainly due to the conditions
under which the compoStor works. \
wooden frame Cor r"S". rs it is known
! in the lra,lr) is ,..>iI.l l,y led :"S into
various letters of the alphabet and the
points OF punctuation. In one box
! there arc \ :. in another IL :. in another
| VS., and SO on; and from this case,
picking up the letters one by one as
required, the compositor turns the
manuscript into type. Practice cr-
abes him to do this not onlv with cX-
trcme rapidity. but with remarkable
accuracy: but he has often to deal with
what he calls tom cnsr,-that is, 4
case in which several of the letters
have got into the wrong oXes.-and.
as he thus unconsciously picks up the
wrong letter from the right box, we
| find oats turned into cats, poets to posis,
arts to rats, jolly to ,foHy and songs to
tongs.
\ theatrical critic, in 4 notice OF Il
charming young actress whose treat
ment of Portia had afforded him much
| pleasure, wrote: Her love for Portia
made acting easy" That was right,
but what the types made him say was
''hcr love for |",hr, etc. 4 compost
tor who WAS better acquainted with
the geography of the west than with
Biblical lore set up the phrase, 'trom
Alpha to Omega" rs ''f;om Ihon to
Omaha"
1t must have been the very printers
devil himself who represented n very
worthy advocate of the cause of female
suffrage as cNhorting her hearers to
''maintain their tyhfS.' What the
bridesmaids at recent wedding mast
| have thought when they read that they
had all worn ..Ilandsome brrcrhrs the
gift of the bridegroom one can only
guess But whatever their thoughts
may have been at seeing their pretty
blo ches thus transformed. their lang
uagc at any rate cannot, we may as
sumo, have matched that OF the politi-
clan who read the following comment
on one of his speeches: "Them asses he
lieved him" Possibly he was not IN rh
consoled by being assured that the re-
porter had merely wished to signify
that ''thc masses believed him An
other reporter was made to say: "At
these words the entire audience rose
and rent the air with their snouts."
The compositor had set up shouts cor
rectly, but had not observed that the
top Of the Il was broken off. An cE-
thusiastic editor began his l,adinG-ar-
ticle on local election campaign with
the phrase, The battle is now opened"
Unfortunately the compositor trans
formed battle into boiikp and his readers
said that they had suspected it all
along!
Mr.. Gladstone, as is we'll known, is
always lavish of his admiration for the
new books sent him hy aspiring authors
or crafty publishers, but he has rarely
expressed it more cmphatically tLan
when he wrote to the publisher of
certain novel: ave have not allowed
one person to leave the house without
reading it." \ newspaper. recording
this testimonial to the merits of the
tale. made Mr.. Gladstone assure the
delighted publisher: I'VE have not al
lowed 0nr pdrson to leave the house
without reading it. Our pnrson, at
Hawarden. it will be remembered, is
Mr.. Gladstone's son. the Reverend
Stephen Gladstone.
How history may he affected 10y 4
printers error kinglake has shown.
To such a blundcr is due the fact that
the late emperor of the French styled
himself Napoleon III instead of Napo-
leon II. Just before the carp deiaf,
the historian says, clerk in the min
istry Of the interior wrote, in one of
the proclamations which were to an
nouncc the fact to the world, "Que le
mot d'ordre soft vivc Napoleon . -
The printer took the notes of cxclama-
tion for numerals: and it was not be-
cause of any memory Of the poor little
king of Rome, but because of this typo
graphical blunder. that the second en-
pire was dominated by Napoleon III.
Many of the humors of the compos-