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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 7

[trade dispatches]

The Trades Union Congress (says the Effective Advertiser) is always a business-like assembly. By the aid of three-minute speeches, firmness on the part of the Chairman, and mutual loyalty on the part of all members, its week has adopted sufficient resolutions to occupy the House of Commons for two or three sessions.— [But the congress has no Hansard. That would put a stop to business-like proceedings, and very quickly demoralize the whole assembly.]

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When the binder crops or « bleeds » a valuable book, the owner is justly incensed. In a late English case, Browning v. Wells, plaintiff claimed £6, alleging that defendant had spoiled a dictionary by trimming off the margins. Defendant alleged that he had only « scraped » the volume. The court held that the book had not been spoiled, and gave the nominal damages of 1s per volume—3s in all.

Stoking a steamer with bank-notes (says Iron) is a novel spectacle which was witnessed at a Mediterranean port. Forty-five sacks of the apparently valuable paper were tossed into the furnace of the vessel's boilers, under the longing eyes of the stokers, who stood restively by with an evidently burning desire to possess themselves of at least a handful of that which they somewhat inelegantly styled « rum fuel. » The notes were cancelled documents of the Bank of Algiers, whose manager superintended the operation of their combustion.

The Birmingham Daily Gazette proprietors having introduced electricity as the motive power for their large printing machines, announced that their journal was absolutely the first daily in the world so produced. The statement was promptly challenged, it being stated that the Vancouver Daily News Advertiser had been so printed for four years. Further, that for two years electric trams had been run in the same city. The critic added that seven years ago the site of Vancouver (which now contains 15,000 inhabitants) was a primeval forest.

The following letters, published in a trade exchange, illustrate the American idea of business correspondence: « Minn., June 27, 1892. Messrs—, agents— Typefoundry, St. Louis. Gents. ؟Can you sell us type to print embossed like enclosed sample? If you have this kind of type, please send us a sample sheet with prices, &c. Respectfully yours, —. » The agents appear to have passed the requisition on to their principals, who thus reply: « Messrs —. You will kindly get a large gun, fill it to the muzzle, and blow the above darned fool off the face of the earth. We will pay all funeral expenses. —Typefoundry. »

In an article headed « Reckless Newsgatherers, » the San Francisco Newspaper Man justly censures the World reporter who broke quarantine and risked infecting a whole continent with deadly disease merely that he might give a sensational account of the horrors on board a cholera-stricken ship. Equally censurable was the man whose filthy and revolting fooling with cholera-germs has been reported, and who has been lauded in some quarters as a hero. In each case the motive was contemptible—a low craze for notoriety at any cost.

« Wanted—a name, » says the Chicago Specimen. « Printing office, » it points out. common as the term is, is both clumsy and inaccurate; « printing establishment » is cumbrous and stilted; « printing house, » though good old English, is little used, and is ambiguous. « Printing shop, » or « print-shop » (the term being used in the sense of workshop) are suggested; also « printery, » which already has some currency in the United States.—We do not know that any grammatical objection can be taken to the latter form. It seems a little uncouth; but familiarity would soon remove that impression. The « shop » compounds are objectionable as suggesting a retail business, and « print-shop » has already a well-defined meaning—the term being appropriated to the picture-selling business.

« Change not the name of New Zealand for newer, vainer claims, » wrote a Canterbury poet long years ago; and surely the valiant old Hollanders who first discovered these islands had a perfect right to name them. Not only so, but they unconsciously did a good turn to the future journalists of the colony, whose trained eyes catch the characteristic capitals with the right and left slope at a glance. « Nova Zembla » certainly has the same initials, but no one ever writes about it. The people of the colony have no sympathy with the idle faddists who advocate a change, and the question is of no practical interest; but if any argument were needed, it would be found in the imbecility of the names proposed as substitutes. For three of these Mr Bracken is responsible: « The Freelands, » « Maoriland, » and the somewhat profane and utterly objectionable « God's Own Country. » The first and last of these fell flat enough, and the second would have passed equally unnoticed, had not two low Australian papers persistently used it, even taking the liberty of substituting the nickname in extracted paragraphs. These items occasionally find their way into New Zealand papers, and the ugly title sometimes crops up in unexpected places, to the annoyance of the reader. The record of New Zealand has been, on the whole, a good one; it has never disgraced its name by repudiation, bankruptcy, or anarchy. When it disgraces the good old name, it will be time to cast about for an alias.

A correspondent sends us a copy of England and the Union and the Primrose Chronicle, a London weekly, which, from its compound title, appears to have been formed by the fusion of two or more periodicals. It is a curiosity of old-time Toryism.

Here is an example of awkward juxtaposition: « Rockwood, N.S.W., contains the necropolis and principal cemetery of Sydney; the funerals being conducted by train. Preserved meat works are also in the neighborhood. »

Notwithstanding the spread of education, Mrs Malaprop is still abroad. Referring to the « almost human » expression of a favorite dog, a lady remarked: « When I look at it, I can almost believe in transubstantiation. » And another lamenting her increasing girth, feared that she would soon be compelled to wear an « abominable » belt.

A private man who loves books, (says the Spectator), unless he be exceptionally rich, is always, as he advances in life, tormented by the difficulty of finding room for them. They grow and grow, and the wall-space does not grow, and the shelves do not grow either; and unless he resorts to the unspeakably detestable expedient of reduplicating the books on each shelf—a device which not only destroys the back rows, but imperils the owner's chance of heaven, the book wanted being invariably lost for the time-being, with results in evil wishes and language—there comes a time when he is at his wit's end.

Distant fields look green—especially when the observer is of the same color. Under the heading of « An Island in which Justice Prevails » the New York Union Printer quotes some amazing statements by the Sydney correspondent of the Voice. After an absurdly inaccurate account of the so-called village settlement system in this colony, the writer concludes with the assertion: « There are no unemployed in New Zealand. » The Labor Bureau could tell a different story. At the time of writing there are over forty printers vainly seeking work in Wellington, the most prosperous city in the colony, and other trades can tell a similar story. ؟Is the correspondent of the Voice a lunatic—or merely a l—?

The Printers' Register of December writes: Among other unavoidable troubles and vexations which master-printers occasionally experience, has to be included the dirty-minded journeyman or apprentice, who will maliciously substitute in a galley or form certain filthy words which, if undetected, would bring disgrace upon both printer and publisher. Two instances of this have just occurred in a well-known city office. Galleys of matter had been corrected and revised, and while the press reviser was giving the proofs a final superficial glance over, he found, in each case where there were no adjacent marks to attract his attention, two of these disgusting substitutions. What made the case worse was that the matter was intended for insertion in a domestic journal. One of these evidences of depravity occurred some years ago in a large office in Blackfriars, where an edition of Darwin's works was being printed. A sheet had been machined, and was being folded, when the girl noticed a certain word. She showed this to her forewoman, who communicated with the manager, with the result that the whole of the printed sheets were at once burned in the stoke-hole. First proofs, revises, and press proofs were in this case all correct. The guilty person was never found.

An excellent suggestion is made in The Times by a Lancashire newspaper proprietor, and reprinted in the Printers' Register. He says: Many editors would exclude betting intelligence to-morrow if they could do so without transferring their employers' property to competitors. It is useless to expect them to act singly in this matter, and it would take a generation before combination among editors could be organized to secure uniform action in the direction sought. The more excellent way of dealing with this question is to dry up the source of the spring. The betting intelligence published in newspapers is transmitted to them by the government of the day. There is the true objective point of practical agitation in this matter. Induce parliament to decide that betting intelligence shall be excluded from transmission by telegraph, as bad language, slander, &c., are already excluded; and editors could not publish betting news worth having if they would. A parliament virtuous enough to wash the hands of the government from its inciting and stimulating complicity with the betting mania would be strong to suppress whatever else might remain of the evil. Therefore, the efforts of religious leaders should be concentrated upon parliament prohibiting the transmission of betting news. The moral effect of such a decision by the legislature would have incalculable influence for good upon the nation.

page 8

« In my boyhood, » Mr DeVinne writes, « master printers used to advertise that they could do 'every kind of printing' that could be offered. I know of no one who makes that boast now. Our art is so complex and has so many branches that no one dare take all of them. Every sensible printer finds his advantage, not in getting together all the orders he can, but in getting only the work that he can do at a profit—work that he has facilities for and that he knows how to manage. The tendency of the trade is to specialties. »

Dr Allison, editor of the health pages of The Times, warns persons suffering from influenza to avoid all alcoholic drinks, as instead of giving strength they waste it. This is significant, considering that whisky is vulgarly regarded as a great specific in such cases. He also warns people against drugs, and says half the deaths have occurred though the use of medicine. His treatment is—go to bed, and get as much fresh air as possible by slightly opening the windows, use milk diet, and take a warm sponge-bath night and morning.

Horace Greeley, in his « Recollections of a Busy Life, » tells the following story; A gushing youth once wrote to this effect; « Dear Sir,—Among your literary treasures you have doubtless preserved several autographs of our country's late lamented poet, Edgar Allan Poe. If so, and you can spare one, please enclose it to me, and receive the thanks from yours truly, » &c. I promptly responded as follows; « Dear Sir,—Among my literary treasures there happens to be exactly one autograph of our country's late poet, Edgar Allan Poe. It is a note of hand for fifty dollars, with my endorsement across the back. It cost me exactly fifty dollars seventy-five cents, including protest, and you may have it for half that amount.—Yours respectfully, Horace Greeley. » That autograph, I regret to say, remains in my hands, and is still for sale at the original price.