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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. 11. If] v ■£*» r '-' *-, | '%|s'> im 1 tAMP^ mm :i , W^«|||S| * S2i£i } |i^3 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 1 - - , -^r^^-^^-^r-^.---^ - - --.rS-.——--—T~ giw^-- 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