Newspaper Page Text
Entered according to Act of Congress, in J une,lß7o, by J. YY T . Bokkk & Cos., in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the So. District o 1 Georg i a
Vol. iv— No. 24.
Written for Burke’s Weekly
HOW BOOKS AND NEWSPAPERS
ARE MADE.
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picture of a composing room in
a large daily newspaper office.
It is not a very difficult matter
to learn to set type. A sensible
boy, with a fair English educa
tion, can with proper application
learn in a few months to make
himself quite useful in a com
posing room. He is first re
quired to learn the boxes. Most
people wbo visit printing offices,
wonder that the letters are not
arranged in the boxes in regular
order beginning with a, and
ending with z ; for you must know
that the small letters (the lower
ease) are arranged in a peculiar
manner, quite incomprehensible
to the uninitiated. The capital
letters and the smali. caps, which
we told you last week are in the
upper case, are arranged in regu
lar order, except J and U, which
are put down in the lower row of boxes,
near to the printer’s hand ; and in this
upper case all the boxes are square
and of the same size. But, in the lower
case, some of the boxes are four times
as large as the others, and one of them
is more than four times as large. Now,
the reason that these boxes are made
of different sizes, and the letters are
not arranged in regular order, is, that
of some letters a great many more are
required than others. The box for the
letter e is the largest, because more of
this letter are used than of any other.
The next in importance are a, c, and, h,
i, m, n, o, r, s, t, u. Now, these letters
are not only put into larger hexes, but
they are arranged in the centre of the
case, convenient to the compositor's
hand ; while those in less demand are
put just where they are easiest to get at,
in proportion as they are more or less
wanted.
Now, you will see that the first thing
to be done in learning to set type, is to
become thoroughly acquainted with the
location of these boxes. We have known
some boys to do this in a day or two,
Last week,
we told you
some thing
about the
history of
printing,
and of com
posing or
setting of
type,
and
gave
you a
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but it sometimes takes them much long
er ; and it requires months and even
years to learn all that is to be taught
about type-setting, so as to make a man
a first-class compositor.
But we have gone ahead a little too
fast. There is something necessary in
the making up of a newspaper besides
setting the type —something which must
be done before the compositor can go
to his work. Every well - conducted
newspaper has an editor —some of them
have a great many. We give you on
this page a picture of the editorial room
MACON, GEORGIA, DECEMBER 10, 1870.
of a city daily. Some of the daily
papers in the large cities have very
handsome rooms for their editors. The
editor-in-chief generally has a room of
his own, and then there are large rooms,
like the one in the picture, where three
or four assistants perform their duties.
In these editorial rooms the copy is
prepared for the compositors. Ex
change papers are looked over, and
the news clipped from them and con
densed ; editorials are written; tele
grams are prepared for the press, and
hundreds of oilier things done, as occa-
sion requires. When the “copy” is
ready, it is handed to the foreman, and
he gives it out to the compositors as
they need it.
Now, we will suppose that the com
positor has his copy on the case before
him, and his composing stick (which
we showed you last week) in his hand.
We have already told you that he picks
up the type one at a time, until he has
filled his stick, line by line. He then
lifts the type out of the composing
stick, and puts them on a galley.
“ But, what is a galley?” asks some
Whole No. 180.
little reader, who probably never saw a
printing office.
A galley is an oblong wooden or
brass tray, with a flat bottom and
ledges on the sides and at one end,
to hold the type after they are set.
Into this galley the compositor empties
his type, stickful after stickful, until it
is full. He then “ proves it,” or takes
an impression of it, which is given to
the proof reader. The proof reader
reads it carefully, and marks all the
errors, which the compositor has to
correct. Sometimes there are a great
many errors, and when this is
the case, the compositor
careless or ignorant, and in either
case he is not a good workman.
After the matter, as the print
ers call it, is corrected, it is
passed over to the foreman, or
to some person whose business
it is to impose or make up the
form. If it is a newspaper, the
form will be either two or four
pages, according to whether it is
a folio or a quarto sheet. If the
newspaper contains four pages,
the form will be of two pages ; if
it is an eight page paper, the
form will be of four pages —one
side of the paper being worked
at a time. If it is a book form,
the number of pages will be eith
er eight, twelve, sixteen, twenty
four, thirty - two, or a greater
number if the page is small.
After the form is made up into
pages, it is securely “ locked up”
in a “ chase.” A chase is a strong
wrought-iron frame, which sur-
rounds the type, as you see in the pic
ture on the next page. Strips of wood
or metal are placed between the pages,
and wedged tight, or “locked up,”
with small wooden wedges, which the
printers call “quoins,” until the whole
can be lifted without danger of the type
dropping out.
The form in the picture contains four
pages of the New Testament —the sixth
chapter of Ephesians. Tou will see
that the heads of the pages all face in
wards. This is necessary to make it
fold properly. Imposing a book form