Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-09

I-rcIe Sam is the possesor of the most
,piuue printing office under the sun, and II
a located in this city. In this once arc
facilities and type for printing In twenty
six different languages and typos VINO kho"
how to do 1t. The interesting ana remark
hble printery Is branch of the Government
Printiue Office. and is situated IN the north-
east corner of the picturesque and artlsuc
library of Congress building on Capitol
jim.
The whirr of machinery and the Click
click, click" of Mergenthaler type-settlhs
machines greeted Star reporter as he en-
tered the portals OF this little print shop or
all the worlds known languages. The fore
man or superintendent Mr.. William H.
Fisher a businesslike looking man, with
gray hair and neatly-trimmed mustache
of the same color, told The Star man many
Interesting things about the establishment
? We print the catalogue cards for the
Itbrary OF Congress on the MergenthalerS
In twenty-ore languages he said, but
, IN the hve other tongues II Is necessary TO
have separate fonts of type made especially
Tor our work, and these languages have to
be set by hand. The five that have to be
hand-set are Russian, Hebrew. Anglo
Saxon. Arabic and Greek. And might add
THAT the compositor who sets type from
these five special fonts must know his busi-
ness. and be a man well up in that sort or
hieroglyphics.'
II was explained that the Arabic charac-
tors very much resemble notes of music or
The characters In shorthand, the Anglo
Saxon are also queer looking figures, While
the Russian characters have been described
as appearing like "a tumble of English and
Greek letters and figures upside down"
Some OF the library cards that were shown
TO the reporter appeared as though they had
tbecn printed from pied type with liberal
mixture of Italic and accented letters scat
tered through the lines Other difficult Ian
iguages that are printed in the office are
iRoumauian. Provincial Japanese, Chinese,
Portuguese. Celtic Gaelic, Icelandish
Hungarian. Hawaiian, Finish. Creole dia-
legt Bohemian. the Florida language, much
resembling badly pied" type, not to mem
tion German. Tarascan, Micmac and
French.
Sets Greek and Hebrew.
The library branch printing office is busly
engaged in getting out thousands of cards
which are TO be used in the vast work now
in progress OF establishing the reference
card system in lieu OF the indexes formerly
used in the great Library of Congress
There are approximately 100000 books in
the library. and about 100000 different
descriptive cards will have to be supplied
for this great number of works. To do this
there Is a force of twenty-five employees,
including compositors. proofreaders. reyis-
ers. copy holders linotype machinists. press
men feeders and laborers. The office Is
equipped with the most modern presses
AMI machinery. including four Mergenthsler
machines of the conference.-the standard.
with keyboerds arranged fer the setting Of
lower case, capitals, small capitals. itaiic
and a medium heavy-face headline letter.
The principal compositor who sets by
hand Russian, Greek. Hebrew and Arabic.
has made q study of those languages. and
although he cannot speak them huentiy. he