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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 5

[miscellaneous paragraphs]

« Cutting » in the colonies can scarcely be worse than in some parts of Great Britain. A correspondent of the Printing Times says: « The price paid to two printers for the county printing last year amounted to about £1,600. This year a printer has taken the lot for £241. To enable him to do this work it is estimated that he will have to spend in special plant and material at least £1,000, and his contract is for one year only. This is another instance of the injury done to the trade by men who have adopted the profession and have not served the usual apprenticeship. »

Mark Twain, at a banquet recently, told the following story of one of his pranks in the days of his printers'-devilhood:—About a thousand years ago, approximately, I was apprenticed as a printer's devil to learn the trade, in common with three other boys of about my own age. There came to the village a long-legged individual of about 19, from one of the interior counties —fish-eyed, no expression, and without the suggestion of a smile—couldn't have smiled for a salary. We took him for a fool, and thought we would scare him to death. We went to the village druggist and borrowed a skeleton. The skeleton did not belong to the druggist, but he had imported it for the village doctor, because the doctor thought he would send away for it, having some delicacy about using. … The price of the skeleton at that time was $50. I don't know how high they go now, but probably higher on account of the tariff. We borrowed the skeleton about nine o'clock at night, and we got this man—Nicodemus Dodge was his name—we got him to go down town out of the way, and then we put the skeleton in his bed. He lived in a little one-storied log-cabin in the middle of a vacant lot. We left him to get home by himself. We enjoyed the result in the light of anticipation, but by-and-by we began to drop into silence. The possible consequences were preying upon us. Suppose that it frightens him into madness, overturns his reason, and sends him screeching through the streets. We shall spend sleepless nights the rest of our days. Everybody was afraid. By-and-by it was forced to the lips of one of us that we had better go at once and see what had happened. Loaded down with crime we approached the hut and peeped through the window. That long-legged critter was sitting on the bed with a hunk of gingerbread in his hand, and between the bites he played a tune on a jews-harp. There he sat perfectly happy, and all around him were toys and gimcracks and striped candy. The darned cuss had gone and sold that skeleton for $5. The druggist's $50 skeleton was gone. We went in tears to the druggist and explained the matter. We couldn't have raised that $50 in 250 years. We were getting board and clothing for the first year, clothing and board for the second year, and both of them for the third year. But the druggist forgave us.