Printing in China

1895

Shun Pao, Shanghai Daily, Has Eight Pages of Thin Rice Paper.

Shanghai is China's chief port and contains about 400,000 inhabitants, who are under native rule, and the English, American and French "settlements," with 250,000 Chinese and 5,000 foreigners, all of whom are under foreign rule.

In that city tremendous congregations gather in the mission churches, and there are to be found the largest Sunday schools in China. In Shanghai is also the largest mission press in the world. More than 1,000 Chinese converts are connected with the different missions.

In the mission press electrotyping and stereotyping are done, and over 35,000,000 pages are issued annually.

The Shun Pao is the best paying and most widely circulated of the three native newspaper dailies of Shanghai. It is an eight page sheet, printed on the thinnest of rice paper. It is so light that it does not weigh more than a man's handkerchief and so thin that the paper can be printed on one side only.

The paper goes to press in big sheets, which are so folded that the blank side is turned inward when taken in hand by the subscriber, and so that there is neither cutting nor pasting. Owing to the thinness of the paper it has a greasy, yellow appearance, and it is printed so closely with Chinese type that not an inch seems to be wasted.

The headline or title of the paper consists of two Chinese characters, taking up a space not wider than one of the columns of our newspapers and not more than an inch in length.

Its price is 10 cash, which, allowing for the difference in currency, makes it equivalent to half a cent in our money. — Philadelphia Press.

The Standard Out of Temper

New York, 1895

Giving Way to Anger When Compelled to Compete for Public Work.

The Standard is very mad. The Town Board passed a resolution to have all public printing and official supplies furnished under contract. This was done at the suggestion of Republican officeholders, who had been bored almost to death by patronage hunters. These Republican officeholders had been censured by the Republican town committee for not giving their orders to a Republican printing office, which meant the Standard. These officers gave their work to the office that could do it best and for the least money. This action in the interest of economy was not pleasing to the Republican committee and the Republicans who own Standard stock.

A representative of the Standard went to Supervisor Everitt and complained that the passage of the resolution to throw the work open to competition would place all the work in one office. He meant THE FARMER office. The Supervisor said: "Why, not at all. The Standard office has a chance to bid for the work the same as every other office, and if the Standard can do the work cheaper than any other office, then the Standard will get all the work."

The representative of the Standard said his office could not do work as cheaply as THE FARMER office did it, because the Standard has not the facilities, being scantily supplied with type and having no first class presses.

Of course this is the truth. The Standard "farms out" nearly all of its work to city offices. Consequently two offices are getting profit out of it. THE FARMER does all kinds of work right on the premises. We have five splendid presses, one alone costing $2,800, and we run them by steam, and cut paper by steam, and we tons upon tons of type, having added....

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, N.Y., Jan. 4, 1895, p. 1.

Note: The article ends early because the page is ripped and the rest is missing.

The Queer Joke That Eugene Field Played on a Printer

1907

A Maddening Prank

When Eugene Field was city editor of the Kansas City Times he found great amusement in annoying one of the characters employed on the paper. Ferguson was one of the "makeups" on the paper, and in Wyandotte, where he resided, just over the line from Kansas City, he was the leader of a local temperance society. For over a year Field, on coming down to the paper to go to work, would write a personal concerning Ferguson. Generally it ran like this: "Mr. John Ferguson, the well known 'makeup' of the Times composing room, appeared for work yesterday evening in his usual beastly state of intoxication." This entertaining bit Field would send down in a bundle of copy, and the others of the composing room would set it up and say nothing.

Poor Ferguson knew that this awful personal was in their midst and every night would go carefully over every galley for the purpose of locating and killing it. It gave him vast trouble. Every now and then Field would not write his personal about Ferguson, and then the bewildered Ferguson was worse off than ever. As long as he could not find it it might still be there. It almost drove the poor man off the paper. Now and then it escaped his eagle eye and was printed. On such occasions Ferguson's burdens were beyond the power of even a Christian spirit to bear.

Displays His "Happy Family"

1915

Printing Firm's "Zoo" Proves Real Attraction

PERRY, Oklahoma, Dec. 16. — In the front show window of the Southern Printing Company's office here is a "Happy Family" that attracts the attention of hundreds of people. Living happily together and eating from the same dishes are many beautiful canary birds, guinea pigs of different kinds, squirrels, white and spotted rats, horny toads, and a pair of beautiful Persian kittens. It is a sight worth looking at.

Back of the office is a garden of beautiful flowers, and cages in which are tame possums, pet coons that will follow visitors around like dogs, over a hundred guinea pigs of many kinds, pigeons and other birds and animals. "Wish you could all enjoy them with us," is the company's message to Blade readers.

—Saturday Blade, Chicago, Dec. 18, 1915, p. 7.


1910

A Funeral in Japan

Tokyo, Japan. — In Japan a funeral procession is supposed never to go out of the front gate of a house, the back gate being generally used, and if there is no back gate an arch or ring of bamboo is held by two men within the front gate and the bier passes through that. After a funeral salt is sprinkled on the threshold and the house is swept out.


Natural Antipathy

Work kills a few men, but that isn't why so many are afraid of it.

Scared Dog Bests Long Dead 'Gator

Printed Feb. 1920

Fearless Journalists and Compositors Pale at Scene of Devastation

SHELBYVILLE, Missouri. — A dead alligator caused more terror to a long, slim country dog that came to town the other day than a dozen live ones would have created. While the dog's owner was talking to the editor of the Herald, the dog went to sleep over in a corner, and when he woke up the place was dark and all the doors locked.

In the office was a baby alligator in a glass tank. The alligator had departed this life some time ago, and was preserved in some sort of fluid. But the country dog didn't know that. All he saw was some strange looking animal floating around in the tank of water.

Just what happened when the dog became aware that he was locked in with such an uncanny companion can only be surmised by such deduction as Sherlock Holmes might make on the ensuring homicide.

When the foreman of the print shop arrived at the hour prescribed by union labor regulations, he thought at first he might be in the wrong place. The shop he left the night before was orderly, everything where it belonged. Now it looked like a devil's dance had been going on. The alligator was sprawled out on the floor, and suggested a big toy that had run down. The glass tank was in more pieces than the Dutchman's clock. The doors and windows showed marks where the dog had frantically tried to gnaw its way to freedom and, the foreman said, "There were indications that he had climbed up to the telephone to send in any alarm."

Sheets of heavy editorial, country correspondence and poetry were scattered about, with imprints of dog feet upon them, as he had tracked across the press fountain and distribution plates in seeking some place to hide.

The foreman said that everything that wasn't spiked down seemed to have moved about. No cyclone from Kansas could have jostled things about more than did that poor country dog during his exciting night when he had the power of the press all to himself.

If that little 'gator had been alive he would certainly have enjoyed himself.

Progressing among the wreckage, the foreman found the dog over in a corner, seemingly all in, but when he opened the back door something whizzed past him and he heard the snapping of wind out in the alley.

The dog had gone back to the country.

A Printer's Apprentice Who Can't Spell

Humor, 1874

A printer in Glasgow was sadly bothered with an apprentice who could not, or would not, be initiated into that portion of grammar which treats of the proper disposition of letters in words. One day he presented such a shockingly inaccurate proof as made his master, after starting with amazement, take the spectacles from off his nose, and give the ill-disposed "devil" the following recipe:
"My man, just gang hame the night, and tell your mither to boil Fulton & Knight's Dictionary in milk, and take it for your supper, as that seems the only way you'll ever get spelling put into ye."



Complimentary

A lumbering old stage-coach, that plies between two inland towns, is called Noah's Ark. The other morning a pompous traveler yelled at the driver, who had got under way, to "hold on."
"Do you want to get into the Ark?" asked the driver.
"Yes," said the traveler.
"Hurry up, then," was the response, "for we've all the animals aboard already except the donkey."



What does man love more than life,
Hate more than death or mortal strife;
That which contented men desire,
Which poor men have, and rich require?
The miser spends, the spendthrift saves,
And all men carry to their graves?
Nothing.



A young couple were sitting together in a romantic spot, with birds and flowers about them, when the following dialogue ensued:
"My dear, if the sacrifice of my life would please thee, most gladly would I lay it at thy feet."
"Oh, sir, you are too kind! But it just reminds me that I wish you'd leave off using tobacco."
"Can't think of it. It's a habit to which I am wedded."
"Very well, sir; since this is the way you lay down your life for me, and as you are already wedded to tobacco, I'll take good care you are never wedded to me, as it would be bigamy."



Don't quarrel with a spiritualist. He can always turn the tables on you!


What fish is most valued by a loving wife? Her-ring.

A Japanese Composing Room — Newspapers, Typesetting

1878

A Japanese Composing Room.

A Tokio (Japan) correspondent of the New York Evening Post, has written up the Nichi Nichi Shinbun or Daily News, the leading journal of the empire. The description of the composing room, as given below, will be found interesting reading:

Next to the editorial room is located the space set aside for the composing force. First we come to the proofreaders, two intelligent persons who have a high reputation for scholarship. The necessity for such attainments becomes apparent when we learn that a full font of type comprises fifty thousand characters, while no less than three thousand are in constant use and two thousand more in frequent employment. And not only must the proof-reader be careful to amend all grammatical slips and typographical errors, but he should have a quick eye for inelegances in the manuscript and for imperfections in the characters themselves.

Separated from the proof-readers by a low latticed railing is the office of the foreman, the magistrate of the cases, and beyond him again we reach the printers. The type is disposed about the room on long racks like those in a public reading room, and the aisles furnish a promenade wherein the compositor can labor in his vocation and take exercise simultaneously.

The matter when set is placed on galleys, and a proof taken. Then the foreman manipulates it into the shape in which the public see it. Four forms are used, each eleven by sixteen inches. The first — that is, the last — page is occupied by a display head, the information concerning number of issue, place and date of publication, price and days of appearance, which commonly follow the title, and government notifications. After these come editorial leading articles and paragraphs. The last — that is, the first — page is devoted to market reports, scientific information and advertisements, and with the official editorial matter makes up the outside forms, which are sent down to press at midnight.

On the "inside" we find the day's discoveries of the reporters and such editorial articles, communications, etc., as found no corner in the outside forms. Such is the routine "make up," but it is elastic enough, of course, to suit the journalistic requirements of the day. During the war, when Mr. Fukuchi was for a time at the front as a special correspondent, much space and attention was given to telegraphic news, but the lack of an associated press makes such matter rather costly, and only a limited amount appears. Each correspondent, however, is furnished with a private telegraphic code, and is empowered to send the journal by this means information that seems to justify the outlay.

Advertising in Olden Times

1878

Macademized roads, in all save the name, were known in the Roman dominions 200 years before the Christian era, were not merely limited to the vicinity of the capital, but were laid down in every province that succumbed to the valor of the Republican arms.

At an equally early age, the Roman Senate, among various other decrees relating to the order and discipline to be observed in the city, enacted that men should give place to women in the streets, and leave them the unmolested use of the smooth line of pavement, which every house-owner had to maintain in good condition in front of his own residence.

Colossal sign-boards announced to the passers-by the business followed in the houses; while in time of Plautus, notices of lost and found objects were displayed on placards written in letters a cubit long; and gladiatorial games, races, shows and theatrical exhibitions, were made public by huge boards displaying colored representations of some of the most striking scenes or sights to be exhibited. The walls, doors, and palings were covered with these rude advertisements, which seemed generally to have been drawn in some bright color on a black red ground.

Although the Romans, like other ancient nations, were ignorant of printing as applied to the multiplication of books, they were familiar with the use of printing type, which their porters used for stamping names on their vases; and we are told that the Emperor Justinian, when he wished to append his signature to a public document, had recourse to a small wooden tablet, on which the letters of his name were cut, which he traced on the paper by following with the point of his style pen the various contours of the carving.

But perhaps the strangest indication of the fact that most of our assumed discoveries and innovations are mere "rehabilitations," to use a French word, of pre-existing things, is supplied by the suggestion which is ascribed to Plato for the establishment of agencies for marriage, by means of which the qualities of each candidate for matrimony might be made known, and men thus have a better chance of procuring wives suited to their various characters.

The idea seems to have been lost for ages, but not wholly, for it revived in great force about a century ago, when some ingenious German, either from the depths of his own consciousness, or from careful study of Plato's writings, established at Hamburg an office for the transaction of matrimonial affairs, in which advertisements for husbands and wives were always to be seen. There was not the slightest mystery or reserve assumed; and there was great frankness displayed both by the ladies and gentlemen who took part in these negotiations, for we are informed by one advertiser that "she is fifty-nine years of age, and having buried her fourth husband within the previous three weeks, is anxious to meet with a good-looking, healthy young man of twenty-six, as successor to her lamented partners. He need be under no trouble or care about money matters, as she has plenty of both, and will leave him her universal legatee."

Typesetting By Photography In The Works

October 1925

TYPE-SETTING FILM

London — Type-setting by photography is the latest invention heralded as a printing revolution. J.R.C. August and E.K. Hunter, who have devised the system, predict that metal type printing will soon be obsolete. The basis of the invention is a film on which letters and all kinds of type have been photographed by means of a keyboard like that of a typewriter. Characters from a "master film" are projected in rapid sequence on to a sensitized base and photographed by fractional exposures.