Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1921-06-10
SOME OLD-TTME PRINTERS
WHO ROSE TO FAME

was an a%spirant for the same honor,
the country has naturally been awakened
to a keener interest in the art preser-
vative," and has focused attention on a
craft which has provided big men for
every position in life, observes a writer
in the Christian Science Monitor.
Where is the old-fashioned printer?
With his disappearance, the world loses
a type of worker who from Ben Franklin
on has furnished the country with men
who have made their influence felt, not
only as master printers and master jour-
n~alists, but who, through the liberal edu-
cation and ideas acquired in their train
ing, have swelled the ranks of the learned
professions and become actors, ministers,
authors, humorists and leaders in various
lines.
The first and most important class was
composed of the elect; the well-born and
well-bred; the ambitious young man who
desired a higher education, and who en-
tered a printing office with the intention
of learning the business thoroughly and
fitting himself for a position of impor-
lance. The printing office was the poor
mans university, and highly esteemed
as such.
A newspaper office was the natural
forum and gathering place for all the
brightest thinkers and of men in the pub
lie eye.
To a now almost extinct class of Ameri.
can printers belonged such shining lights
as Bayard Taylor, Bret Harte, Artemus
Ward, William Dean Howells, Ben
Shillabar, Opie Read, Charles B. Lewis
and a whole galaxy of good men and
good printers. That the system of be-
coming printers and writer's Through the
fingers was a splendid one, the mere
recital of these few names among many,
is evidence.
1t was natural for men of this stamp
to seek to enlarge their knowledge by
travelling about the country while they
worked at their chosen calling, studying
types, gathering local color and satisfy
ing their desire strange places for to
see."
Travelling in those days was not as
easy and universal as now. Printers trav-
eled afoot when there was anything to see,
hear or learn thereby. They p~atronized
the railroads when that best served their
turn. They we're respected and respect
able, they paid their way, and if they
were not wealthy-why, nobody else was,
either. When they had absorbed the
atmosphere or sights of one place they
took the next in which they were in
terested. They were in no sense tramp
printers as most people understand the
term. When the travelling printer of
this first class found his niche he settled
down and filled it.
1t was in this manner that Bayard
Taylor, the famous author, traveller and
diplomat, covered the United States and
Europe. A more polished gentleman
and a more graceful writer and poet it
would be hard to find in this day, and
that his "Views Afoot'' were acquired
while continuing work as a printer added
rather than detracted from their value.
Most of the old-time printers were
writer's as well. They gravitated natur-
ally into the writing profession. Not
i~nfrequently, too, these newspaper men
and the humorists who conducted or con.
tributed columns of humor, set much of
their matter right outer their heads"
at the case. 1t seemed at one time as
though every good American humorist
had been a travelling printer at one time
or another.
Ike made their debut in the columns of
the Boston Post. Artemus Ward liked
all the way from Portland, Me-, to Boston
and then by easy stages to Cleveland, O.
En- route he studied human nature, gath
cred local color, making the acquaintance
of theatrical and circus people of every
type, gradually visualizing in his own
Imagination that showmen through whose
mouth he later launched himself into
fame. The idea which he acquired as
a travelling printer came to ~fruition while
he was on the Plain Dealer in Cleveland.
Texas jack was another aristocrat
of printerdom who elected to travel.
After walking from Springfield he entered
into a Worcester, Mass, daily composing
and asked to Sub" He was tall
and gawky, wore a sombrero, top boots
and a long linen duster. He was set to
work, but his countrifed appearance and
manner promptly started the
compositors to guying him. who is
Slug Three?' "Who is the Dutchman
that set this take?" What blacksmith
shop was Slug Three raised in?" and
cutting remarks for Texas jacks
edification were freely banded about.
The southerner, however, paid no at
tention to these thrusts. He kept right
on sticking type. By and by it became
that the stranger was far from
being the countryman he looked, for he
8 emptied in" with amazing frequency,
and his proof showed no errors.
In the morning it developed that