Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls. Unknown
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for the type-setters all the articles which come from the City Department. There are stacks and stacks of them. Each reporter thinks his subject is the most important, and writes it up fully; and, when it is all together, perhaps there is a third or a half more than there is room in the paper to print. So the Assistant City Editor, and his Assistant, who come to the office at about five o’clock in the afternoon, read it all over carefully, correct it, cut out that which it is not best to use, group all the news of the same sort so that it may come under one general head, put on suitable titles, decide what sort of type to put it in, etc.,—a good night’s work for both of them. They also write little introductions to the general subjects, and so harmonize and modify the work of twenty or twenty-five reporters, as to make it read almost as if it were written by one man, with one end in view.
The editors of the general news have to do much the same thing by the letters of correspondents, and by the telegraphic dispatches.
While this sort of work goes on, hour after hour, with many merry laughs and many good jokes interspersed to make the time fly the swifter, we will wander about the establishment. Here, in the top story of the building, is the room of the type-setters. Every few minutes, from down-stairs in the Counting Room, comes a package of advertisements to be put into type; and from the Editorial Rooms a package of news and general articles for the same purpose. They do not trouble to send them up by a messenger. A tube, with wind blown through it very fast, brings up every little while a little leathern bag, in which are the advertisements or the articles—the “copy” as the type-setters call it.
In this room are thirty or forty type-setters. Each one of them has his number. When the copy comes up, a man takes it and cuts it up into little bits, as much as will make, say, a dozen lines in the paper, and numbers the bits—“one,” “two,” etc., to the end of the article. Type-setter after type-setter comes and takes one of these little bits, and in a few moments sets the type for it, and lays it down in a long trough, with the number of the bit of copy laid by the side of it. We will suppose that an article has been cut up into twenty bits. Twenty men will each in a few moments be setting one of these bits, and, in a few minutes more they will come and lay down the type and the number of the bit in the long trough, in just the right order of the number of the bits—“one,” “two,” etc. Then all the type will be slid together, and a long article will thus be set in a few minutes, which it would take one or two men several hours to set. It is by this means that long articles can in so short a time be put into type. Each man who takes a bit, has to make his last line fill out to the end of the line; and, because there are sometimes not words enough, so that he has to fill out with some extra spaces between the words, you may often see in any large daily paper every two inches, or so, a widely spaced line or two showing how the type-setter had to fill out his bit with spaces—only he would call the bit, a “take.”
PRINTING PRESSES OF THE PAST AND PRESENT
I said that each type-setter has his number. We will suppose that this man, next to us, is number “twenty-five.” Then he is provided with a great many pieces of metal, just the width of a column, with his number made on them—thus: “TWENTY-FIVE.” Every time he sets a new bit of copy, he puts one of these “twenty-fives” at the top; and when all the bits of type in the long trough are slid together the type is broken up every two inches or so, with “twenty-five,” “thirty-seven,” “two,” “eleven,” and so on, at the top of the bits which the men, whose numbers these are, have set. When a proof of the article is taken, these several numbers appear; and, if there are mistakes, it appears from these numbers, what type-setters made them, and they have to correct them. Also, of each article, a single “proof” is taken on colored paper. These colored paper “proofs” are cut up the next day, and all the pieces marked “twenty-five,” “thirty-seven,” and so on, go to the men who have these numbers, and when pasted together show how much type, number “twenty-five,” “thirty-seven,” and so on, are to be paid for setting—for the type-setters are paid according to the amount of type which they set.
FAC-SIMILE OF “PROOF” SHOWING “TAKES.”
As fast as the proofs are taken they go into the room of the proof-readers to be corrected. The bits of copy are pasted together again, and one man holds the copy while another reads the proof aloud. The man holding the copy notices any points in which the proof does not read like the copy, and tells the man who is reading it. The man reading it corrects the variations from copy, and corrects all the other mistakes which he can discover, and then the type-setters have to change the type so as to make it right. There the proof readers sit hard at work, reading incredibly fast, and making rapid and accurate corrections; then the “copy” is locked up, and no one can get at it, except the Managing Editor or Editor-in-Chief gives an order to see it. This precaution is taken, in order to make certain who is responsible for any mistakes which appear in the paper—the editors, or the type-setters.
By this time it is nearly midnight, and the editors, type-setters, etc., take their lunches. They either go out to restaurants for them, or have them sent in—hot coffee, sandwiches, fruit, etc.—a good meal for which they are all glad to stop.
And now the Foreman of the type-setters sends to the Night Editor that matter enough is in type to begin the “make-up”—that is, to put together the first pages of the paper. There the beautiful type stands, in long troughs, all corrected now, the great numbers of the type-setters removed from between the bits of type—the whole ready to be arranged into page after page of the paper. So the Night Editor makes a list of the articles which he wants on the page which is to be made up; the Foreman puts them in in the order which the Night Editor indicates; the completed page is wedged securely into an iron frame, and then is ready to be stereotyped.
A NEWS-DEALER.
The room of the stereotypers is off by itself. There is a furnace in it, and a great caldron of melted type metal. They take the page of the paper which has just been made up; put it on a hot steam chest; spat down upon the type some thick pulpy paper soaked so as to make it fit around the type; spread plaster of Paris on the back, so as to keep the pulpy paper in shape; and put the whole under the press which more perfectly squeezes the pulpy paper down upon the type, and causes it to take a more perfect impression of the type. The heat of the steam chest warms the type, and quickly dries the pulpy paper and the plaster of Paris. Then the pulpy paper is taken off, and curved with just such a curve as the cylinders of the printing-press have, and melted type metal is poured over it, which cools in a moment; when, lo, there is a curving plate of type-metal just like the type! The whole process of making this plate takes only a few minutes. They use such plates as these, rather than type, in printing the great papers chiefly for reasons like these: 1. Because plates save the wear of type; 2. Because they are easier handled; 3. Because they can be made curving, to fit the cylinders of the printing presses as it would be difficult to arrange the type; 4. Because several plates can be made from the same type, and hence several presses can be put at work at the same time printing the same paper; 5. Because, if anything needs to be added to the paper, after the presses have begun running, the type being left up-stairs can be changed and new plates made, so that the presses need stop only a minute for the new plates to be put in—which is a great saving of time.
But, coming down into the Editorial Rooms again—business Tom, and thoughtful Jonathan, and sleepy little Nell—all is excitement. Telegrams have just come in telling of the wreck of an ocean steamer, and men are just being dispatched to the steamer’s office to learn all the particulars possible, and to get, if it may be, a list of the passengers and crew. And now, just in the midst of this, a fire-alarm strikes, and in a few moments the streets are as light as day with the flames of a burning warehouse in the heart of the business part of the city. More men are sent off to that; and, what with the fire and the wreck, every reporter, every copy-editor, every type-setter and proof-reader are put to their hardest work until the last minute before the last page of the paper must be sent down to the press-rooms. Then, just at the last, perhaps the best writer in the office dashes off a “leader” on the wreck sending a few lines at a time to the type-setters—a leader which, though thought out, written,