The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-01-05
PRINTERS ERRORS.
Innocent Malice--The Fiendish Beha

telling arguments or flights of fancy
the compostor exercises his wit may be
annoyed, but the general public has no
alloy in the enjoyment Of these typo
graphical antics, Miss Fanny Fudge,
the youthful genius discovered by Tom
Moore, who used to contribute to the
Poets Corner of 1.-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 I meant to have made most
beautiful thing,
Where I talk'd Of "the dewdrops from
freshly-b roses"
The nasty things made it from fresh
ly-blown noses!'
And once when to please my cross aunt
I 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 1t, he'd tak'n up to Heaven
his physician
The readers of 1.-THE County Gazette"
no doubt, preferred the amended poem
to the original.
The responsibility for these humors of
the composing rests sometimes
with the authors vile handwriting; but
1t is mainly due to the conditions under
which the compositor works wood
en- frame Cor case, as it is known in the
~ ;e3 111r1 Ioae, t,,ta
receptac1es Of boxes, for the various let
tiers Of the alphabet and points of pune
tuation. In one box there are all AS,
in another all HIS, and in another all
US, and SO on; and from this case,
picking up the letters one by one as re-
quired, the compositor turns the manu-
script into type. Practice enables him
to do this not only with extreme rapid
ty, but with what he calls a foul case
that is, a case in whichseveral 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 into cats, poets to
posts, arts to rats, jolly to folly, and
songs to tongs.
A theatrical critic in a notice of a
charming young actress whose treat
pleasure, wrote, Her love for Portia
made acting easy" That was right
enough, but what the types made him
say was cher 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 him
~ cd n CT ,.tf nt, nj &
next morning. In the earlier half of the
present century 1t was announced in a
London newspaper that "Sir Robert
Peel, with party Of fiends, was shoot
ing peasants in Ireland" whereas the
minister and his friends were only in
dulging in the comparatively harmless
pastime Of notwithstanding Shortly
after the battle Of Inkernan one of the
morning papers informed it's readers
that latter desperate struggle the en-
envy was repulsed with great laughter"
The omission Of a single letter has rare
ly, perhaps, played more havoc with a
subject which was certainly no laughing
matter.
1t must have been the very printers
devil himself who represented very
worthy advocate Of the cause of female
suffrage as exhorting her hearers to
maintain their tights" what the
bridesmaids at recent wedding must
have thought When they read That they
had 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 Ian
guage 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 be-
lieved him" Possibly he was not much
consoled by being assured that the re-
poFter nau iiiereiy Wisleu " sishlly
thal the masses peileveu Aiih' IN
announcer occasion On 9 reporeei Wrote AZ
these VIRUS lhe elieile auuieiice lose
aa.;ta,. !, ~ -, s1,a,,+s sor,.oo+1,,
-. 80 ~ als,a.,,ros 49, 49, ~. - ~ >
!, ,,,a. 1raI,a,, ofe a. a,+h,,sia st;c adiS
-, ta,..v, l,,a aaina a,.tiora -, ,ooa1
a1aotio,, 80 ~, n,,th 49, ,,hrosa
ssThe battle Is now opened" JJnfortu-
nately the compositor transformed bat
tleInto bottle. and his readers said that
thew had SUSPECTED IT all along,
~. c,1,a.4o t.. o,, ,,or ;s .,
,,,a,rs 1.,,,sh -, h;s, aar,ina4ia,, e., ~
80, - -. 80. -. ,,4,, 80