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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 5
[miscellaneous paragraphs]
Foreign founders should be careful about the height of types cast for English and colonial printers. Lately a large German house supplied a New Zealand order, and on the fonts being unpacked some of the sorts were found to be to German height. Shortly afterwards the traveller who had taken the order called, and the storm burst upon him. « I did not think, » he said, narrating the occurrence, « that I should leave the office alive! »
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Typo this month is much behind time. This is a not uncommon circumstance with trade journals. We expect to « pull up » to date in the next two or three issues.
Mr A. V. Haight, of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., has sent us a beautifully-printed little program of the « Pilgrimage » to Saratoga of the local « Knights Templar, » in which body he is an office-bearer. The text is in a hair-line « Geometric, » with carmine rule-borders, and the cover, on Bristol board, in black, red, and gold, is a superb specimen of fine printing and embossing.
Though the Government proclaimed the 28th October as a general holiday— « Labor Day » —it was by no means generally observed. The associations of the day are unpleasant, recalling an inexcusable and disastrous strike, which resulted in failure, and brought ruin to many homes. The day will never be cordially observed until the Trades Council fix upon some less offensive anniversary. In Napier and Auckland the day was absolutely ignored, and the closing of the public offices caused inconvenience. In the former city, no demonstration of any kind was or is to be held; in Auckland, the Prince of Wales's birthday has been fixed upon as the day.
Dr. Mirbach, a Waipawa resident, lately « went for » the local Mail, claiming £1000 for alleged libel. The editor had written a pretty strong article on travelling quacks; and that any sane person could have applied it to a resident physician with a regular diploma, passes human comprehension. Nevertheless, there was the inevitable local busybody to tell the doctor that he was described to the life in the article in question; and there were witnesses who testified that they understood that he was intended. In cross-examination, it appeared that they were residents who had at some time or other fallen out with the newspaper. The jury could not agree as to whether the article referred to the plaintiff, who was ultimately nonsuited.
A libel action of unusual interest is pending in Wellington, Mr J. Evison, editor and manager of the Catholic Times, having issued a writ against Messrs E. Thornton and W. J. Henrichs, president and secretary of the Typographical Society, claiming £600 damages for alleged libel contained in two letters jointly written by defendants in their official capacity to Archbishop Redwood, the proprietor of the paper. The alleged libels are, briefly, that the plaintiff conducts the office on the sweating system, and secondly that he was formerly a freethought lecturer. The Typographical Society, at a special meeting, decided to strike a levy, if necessary, to cover the expenses of the defence.
The 6th and 7th October were days of fate. On the 6th passed away Mr W. H. Smith, the leader of the House of Commons, and on the following day Mr Parnell the Irish leader, and his opponent, Mr Pope Hennessy, departed this life. In Mr Parnell, the « white were-wolf » has claimed its latest victim. At first his death was attributed to suicide; his party loudly declare that he was murdered; but there seems no shadow of authentication for either theory. The power of the man who has departed only became recognized when his deposition from the leadership allowed free play to the rival factions that he so long contrived to hold together in an outward semblance of union. It was very generally supposed that his death would tend to bring about some kind of reconciliation; but the result has been exactly opposite. Parnell was the Napoleon of Home Rule—the « uncrowned king. » The cause he advocated was but the means to an end—his own enthronement as the absolute Dictator of Ireland. Now there are half-a-dozen claimants for the same position; but there is no second C. S. Parnell. He leaves no successor.
There was a large demonstration in Wellington on the 28th inst., in celebration of the Eight-Hours Day. The weather was all that could be desired. The N.Z.T.A. made a good show, and distributed leaflets containing the following lines by Mr John Rigg:
Peace for a season holds her gentle sway,
And smiles, with winsome grace, on Labor Day.
The workers' toil to-day is laid aside
As forth they march, with honest manly pride,
To show how much they prize a well-earned boon
They hope to see to all extended soon.
How soon may strife its cruel strength display,
And turn to war the efforts made this day
By those who wish that all in peace may dwell:
Let him who wears the prophet's mantle tell.
For ؟do we not behold on every hand,
And watch, with anxious care, in distant land,
The signs that tell of stubborn fight begun
To wrest from labor all that labor's won?
"We do. But yet, within our listening ear,
Bright Hope doth ever speak, with words of cheer,
Of days to come when all is understood,
And men comprise one glorious brotherhood.
In our next issue we expect to be able to illustrate several new type designs.
The Fielding Star has come out in an enlarged form. It deserves to prosper, and has the goodwill of all its contemporaries.
When a man begs for free drinks, he is generally pretty low in the social scale. When a newspaper descends to the same practice, it has about fathomed the profoundest depth of journalistic degradation. A daily in the north has taken several opportunities lately of making public its quenchless thirst for beer, and intimating that free samples would be welcome. When the liquor came, it was duly puffed in the local column. This seems to have been regarded as an insufficient acknowledgment, for the last generous donor had a whole leading article devoted to his stuff.
Overtures were made to the Trades and Labor Council by quite a number of newspaper rat offices for the privilege of representing « Labor » in the capital city. The boldest scheme was that of the Wairarapa Star, which the Trades Hall, with singular inconsistency, has endorsed. A prospectus has been issued of a company to buy the old plant of the Star, and run the concern in Wellington. The nominal capital is fixed at £12,000. The scheme is a costly one, and its ultimate failure, if entered upon, may safely be predicted. It will however, be an excellent arrangement for the Star proprietors, who have made previous attempts to work the concern off on a company.
In Napier, Mr Joseph Bethune Dunn, late bookkeeper for the Evening News Company, sued the company for £18, being arrears of wages, overtime, and £3 wages in lieu of notice. The plea was put in that it had not been proved that the defendants were a registered company. Plaintiff's counsel said he had not demanded the necessary proof, having understood that the fact would be admitted. The Court held that the objection, if insisted on, was fatal, and a nonsuit, with heavy costs, was the result. Plaintiff being a poor man, and the defendants a (presumably) wealthy company, the case has provoked some sharp comment. We need hardly add that the News is the Organ of Oppressed Labor, and at the very time the case was pending it was hoarsely shrieking over the wrongs of the Auckland bootmakers, whose long strike had collapsed, and who were once again Crushed under the Iron Heel of Capital. 'Twas ever thus.
The American national poet of the coming age is just now a schoolboy. Having thrashed a playmate, his teacher punished him by locking him up by himself for two hours, at the end of which time he was to produce a composition on the subject of his offence, to be read to the school. The following was the result:
When I was walking round to-day I met with Robert Jones;
Before I said a word to him he began a-firing stones.
Do you suppose I'd stand a-doing nothing on the ground
While he was slinging shells and stones and everything around?
So I just goes up to him and batted him in the eye,
And then the little coward hollered and he began to cry.
He told the teacher what I'd done, and I've had to write it up;
And that's the reason I think Bobby is a sneakin' little pup.
A Sydney man tells the following characteristic story of American journalistic enterprise:—I was snowed-in once at Bristol, a little station on the Northern Pacific. It was in the winter of 1885. We were there for about five days. We had plenty to eat, such as it was, but were all anxious to get something to read. The large majority of passengers on the train were men, and we wanted a daily paper, but could not get one for love or money. There was a little weekly paper at Bristol, and it tried to fill the want. The first day of the snow blockade the weekly paper was issued, and nearly everyone on the train took one. I suppose the paper had a larger circulation than it has had since or ever had before, The editor, proprietor, and reporter, all in one, was a wide-awake fellow. He saw that there was a demand for a daily paper, so he got one out every day during our stay. He came down and got our names and residences and published them. This of course made the paper sell. The next day he got something of our histories and wrote them up. The next day he wrote up how we passed the time. By this time he had exhausted all his white paper. He didn't give up. Not much! You don't find a newspaper-man in the North-west that will give up for such trifles as that. He went out and got some brown paper, used in tying up bundles at the grocery store, and printed his edition on that. He got all the brown paper and wrapping-paper in town and then he went for wall-paper, and printed his last edition on that. We bought them every day, more as little souvenirs of the snow blockade than for anything else, although I think I read everything that was printed, from a recipe on cookies to the legal notices.
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If certain time-honored anecdotes regarding the Chinese artists who followed their models even to the extent of reproducing cracks in porcelain and patches in pantaloons are to be credited, the race possesses the faculty of minute and accurate imitation. One would therefore expect a Chinese comp to follow copy far more closely than his European brother. But the Hongkong Telegraph has effectually dispelled this illusion. Presumably for economy it employs almond-eyed and queued gentlemen at case, and the editorial staff and the proof-reader are fast qualifying for an asylum for the insane. To show what he had to put up with, the editor lately inserted a familiar piece just as it came from the hands of the compositor. (It appears to have been set from manuscript, and for one or two of the verbal errors the comp is evidently not responsible.) Here it is:— « The Burial of Sir John Moon.—Not a drum was heard not a funeral note as his corse to the ramparts. We hirmed not a soldur discharged his farewell shot O'er the gram when our Hero we buired. We buired him doubly at dead of night. The soda with our bayonets turning. By thruggling moonheanrs mirty light and the lantern drimly buning. No melen coffin enclosed his breast not in shut nor in shorsed we would him. But he laid like a warrior taking his not. Wilt his martial clock around him. Few and short were the papers and, we spoke not a word of sorrow. But we steadfastly galed on the fall that was dead and we bitterly thought of the morror. »