Chapter 2

In this room are thirty or forty type-setters. Each one of them has his number. When the copy comes up, a man takes it and cuts it up into little bits, as much as will make, say, a dozen lines in the paper, and numbers the bits--"one," "two," etc., to the end of the article. Type-setter after type-setter comes and takes one of these little bits, and in a few moments sets the type for it, and lays it down in a long trough, with the number of the bit of copy laid by the side of it. We will suppose that an article has been cut up into twenty bits. Twenty men will each in a few moments be setting one of these bits, and, in a few minutes more they will come and lay down the type and the number of the bit in the long trough, in just the right order of the number of the bits--"one," "two," etc. Then all the type will be slid together, and a long article will thus be set in a few minutes, which it would take one or two men several hours to set. It is by this means that long articles can in so short a time be put into type. Each man who takes a bit, has to make his last line fill out to the end of the line; and, because there are sometimes not words enough, so that he has to fill out with some extra spaces between the words, you may often see in any large daily paper every two inches, or so, a widely spaced line or two showing how the type-setter had to fill out his bit with spaces--only he would call the bit, a "take."

I said that each type-setter has his number. We will suppose that this man, next to us, is number "twenty-five." Then he is provided with a great many pieces of metal, just the width of a column, with his number made on them--thus: "TWENTY-FIVE." Every time he sets a new bit of copy, he puts one of these "twenty-fives" at the top; and when all the bits of type in the long trough are slid together the type is broken up every two inches or so, with "twenty-five," "thirty-seven," "two," "eleven," and so on, at the top of the bits which the men, whose numbers these are, have set. When a proof of the article is taken, these several numbers appear; and, if there are mistakes, it appears from these numbers, what type-setters made them, and they have to correct them. Also, of each article, a single "proof" is taken on colored paper. These colored paper "proofs" are cut up the next day, and all the pieces marked "twenty-five," "thirty-seven," and so on, go to the men who have these numbers, and when pasted together show how much type, number "twenty-five," "thirty-seven," and so on, are to be paid for setting--for the type-setters are paid according to the amount of type which they set.

As fast as the proofs are taken they go into the room of the proof-readers to be corrected. The bits of copy are pasted together again, and one man holds the copy while another reads the proof aloud. The man holding the copy notices any points in which the proof does not read like the copy, and tells the man who is reading it. The man reading it corrects the variations from copy, and corrects all the other mistakes which he can discover, and then the type-setters have to change the type so as to make it right. There the proof readers sit hard at work, reading incredibly fast, and making rapid and accurate corrections; then the "copy" is locked up, and no one can get at it, except the Managing Editor or Editor-in-Chief gives an order to see it. This precaution is taken, in order to make certain who is responsible for any mistakes which appear in the paper--the editors, or the type-setters.

By this time it is nearly midnight, and the editors, type-setters, etc., take their lunches. They either go out to restaurants for them, or have them sent in--hot coffee, sandwiches, fruit, etc.--a good meal for which they are all glad to stop.

And now the Foreman of the type-setters sends to the Night Editor that matter enough is in type to begin the "make-up"--that is, to put together the first pages of the paper. There the beautiful type stands, in long troughs, all corrected now, the great numbers of the type-setters removed from between the bits of type--the whole ready to be arranged into page after page of the paper. So the Night Editor makes a list of the articles which he wants on the page which is to be made up; the Foreman puts them in in the order which the Night Editor indicates; the completed page is wedged securely into an iron frame, and then is ready to be stereotyped.

The room of the stereotypers is off by itself. There is a furnace in it, and a great caldron of melted type metal. They take the page of the paper which has just been made up; put it on a hot steam chest; spat down upon the type some thick pulpy paper soaked so as to make it fit around the type; spread plaster of Paris on the back, so as to keep the pulpy paper in shape; and put the whole under the press which more perfectly squeezes the pulpy paper down upon the type, and causes it to take a more perfect impression of the type. The heat of the steam chest warms the type, and quickly dries the pulpy paper and the plaster of Paris. Then the pulpy paper is taken off, and curved with just such a curve as the cylinders of the printing-press have, and melted type metal is poured over it, which cools in a moment; when, lo, there is a curving plate of type-metal just like the type! The whole process of making this plate takes only a few minutes. They use such plates as these, rather than type, in printing the great papers chiefly for reasons like these: 1. Because plates save the wear of type; 2. Because they are easier handled; 3. Because they can be made curving, to fit the cylinders of the printing presses as it would be difficult to arrange the type; 4. Because several plates can be made from the same type, and hence several presses can be put at work at the same time printing the same paper; 5. Because, if anything needs to be added to the paper, after the presses have begun running, the type being left up-stairs can be changed and new plates made, so that the presses need stop only a minute for the new plates to be put in--which is a great saving of time.

But, coming down into the Editorial Rooms again--business Tom, and thoughtful Jonathan, and sleepy little Nell--all is excitement. Telegrams have just come in telling of the wreck of an ocean steamer, and men are just being dispatched to the steamer's office to learn all the particulars possible, and to get, if it may be, a list of the passengers and crew. And now, just in the midst of this, a fire-alarm strikes, and in a few moments the streets are as light as day with the flames of a burning warehouse in the heart of the business part of the city. More men are sent off to that; and, what with the fire and the wreck, every reporter, every copy-editor, every type-setter and proof-reader are put to their hardest work until the last minute before the last page of the paper must be sent down to the press-rooms. Then, just at the last, perhaps the best writer in the office dashes off a "leader" on the wreck sending a few lines at a time to the type-setters--a leader which, though thought out, written, set, corrected, and stereotyped in forty minutes, by reason of its clearness, its wisdom, and its brilliancy, is copied far and wide, and leads the public generally to decide where to fix the blame, and how to avoid a like accident again. There is the work of the "_editorial articles, reviews, and notes_"--to comment on events which happen, and to influence the minds of the public as the editorial management of the paper regards to be wise. There is all sorts of this editorial writing--fun, politics, science, literature, religion--and he who says, with his pen, the say of such a newspaper, wields an influence which no mind can measure.

Well, the fire, and the wreck, have thoroughly awakened even little Nell. And so down, down we go, far under ground, to the Press-rooms. There the noise is deafening. Two or three presses are at work. At one end of the press is a great roll of paper as big as a hogshead and a mile or more long. This immense roll of paper is unwinding very fast, and going in at one end of the machine; while at the other end, faster than you can count, are coming out finished papers--the papers printed on both sides, cut up, folded, and counted, without the touch of a hand--a perfect marvel and miracle of human ingenuity. The sight is a sight to remember for a lifetime. Upon what one here sees, hinges very much of the thinking of a metropolis and of a land.

And now, here come the mailing clerks, to get their papers to send off--with great accuracy and speed of directing and packing--by the first mails which leave the city within an hour and a half, at five and six o'clock in the morning. And after them come the newsboys, each for his bundle; and soon the frosty morning air in the gray dawn is alive with the shouting of the latest news in this and a dozen other papers.

This, I am sure, is too fast a world even for business Tom: so let us "spirit" ourselves back to our beds in the quiet, slow-moving, earnest country--Tom and Jonathan and little Nell and I--home, and to sleep--and don't wake us till dinner-time!

UMBRELLAS.

About one hundred and thirty years ago, an Englishman named Jonas Hanway, who had been a great traveller, went out for a walk in the city of London, carrying an umbrella over his head.

Every time he went out for a walk, if it rained or if the sun shone hotly, he carried this umbrella, and all along the streets, wherever he appeared, men and boys hooted and laughed; while women and girls, in doorways and windows, giggled and stared at the strange sight, for this Jonas Hanway was the first man to commonly carry an umbrella in the city of London, and everybody, but himself, thought it was a most ridiculous thing to do.

But he seems to have been a man of strength and courage, and determined not to give up his umbrella even if all London made fun of him. Perhaps, in imagination, he saw adown the future, millions of umbrellas--umbrellas enough to shelter the whole island of England from rain.

Whether he did foresee the innumerable posterity of his umbrella or not, the "millions" of umbrellas have actually come to pass.

But Jonas Hanway was by no means the first man in the world to carry an umbrella. As I have already mentioned, he had travelled a great deal, and had seen umbrellas in China, Japan, in India and Africa, where they had been in use for so many hundreds of years that nobody knows when the first one was made. So long ago as Nineveh existed in its splendor, umbrellas were used, as they are yet to be found sculptured on the ruins of that magnificent capital of Assyria, as well as on the monuments of Egypt which are very, very old; and your ancient history will tell you that the city of Nineveh was founded not long after the flood. Perhaps it was that great rain, of forty days and forty nights, that put in the minds of Noah, or some of his sons, the idea to build an umbrella!

Although here in America the umbrella means nothing but an umbrella, it is quite different in some of the far Eastern countries. In some parts of Asia and Africa no one but a royal personage is allowed to carry an umbrella. In Siam it is a mark of rank. The King's umbrella is composed of one umbrella above another, a series of circles, while that of a nobleman consists of but one circle. In Burmah it is much the same as in Siam while the Burmese King has an umbrella-title that is very comical: "Lord of the twenty-four umbrellas."

The reason why the people of London ridiculed Jonas Hanway was because at that time it was considered only proper that an umbrella should be carried by a woman, and for a man to make use of one was very much as if he had worn a petticoat.

There is in one of the Harleian MSS. a curious picture showing an Anglo-Saxon gentleman walking out, with his servant behind him carrying an umbrella; the drawing was probably made not far from five hundred years ago, when the umbrella was first introduced into England. Whether this gentleman and his servant created as much merriment as Mr. Hanway did, I do not know; neither can I tell you why men from that time on did not continue to use the umbrella. If I were to make a "guess" about it, I should say that they thought it would not be "proper," for it was considered an unmanly thing to carry one until a hundred years ago when the people of this country first began to use them. And it was not until twenty years later, say in the year 1800, that the "Yankees" began to make their own umbrellas. But since that time there have been umbrellas and umbrellas!

The word umbrella comes from the Latin word _umbra_, which means a "little shade;" but the name, most probably, was introduced into the English language from the Italian word _ombrella_. Parasol means "to ward off the sun," and another very pretty name, not much used by Americans, for a small parasol, is "parasolette."

It would be impossible for me to tell you how many umbrellas are made every year in this country. A gentleman connected with a large umbrella manufactory in the city of Philadelphia gave me, as his estimate, 7,000,000.

This would allow an umbrella to about one person in six, according to the census computation which places the population of the United States at 40,000,000 of people. And one umbrella for every six persons is certainly not a very generous distribution. Added to the number made in this country, are about one-half million which are imported, chiefly from France and England. You who have read "Robinson Crusoe," remember how he made his umbrella and covered it with skins, and that is probably the most curious umbrella you can anywhere read about. Then there have been umbrellas covered with large feathers that would shed rain like a "duck's back," and umbrellas with coverings of oil-cloth, of straw, of paper, of woollen stuffs, until now, nearly all umbrellas are covered either with silk, gingham, or alpaca. And this brings us to the manufacture of umbrellas in Philadelphia, where there are more made than in any other city in America.

If you will take an umbrella in your hand and examine it, you will see that there are many more different things used in making it than you at first supposed.

First, there are the "stick," made of wood, "ribs," "stretchers" and "springs" of steel; the "runner," "runner notch," the "ferule," "cap," "bands" and "tips" of brass or nickel; then there are the covering, the runner "guard" which is of silk or leather, the "inside cap," the oftentimes fancy handle, which may be of ivory, bone, horn, walrus tusk, or even mother-of-pearl, or some kind of metal, and, if you will look sharply, you will find a rivet put in deftly here and there.

For the "sticks" a great variety of wood is used; although all the wood must be hard, firm, tough, and capable of receiving both polish and staining. The cheaper sticks are sawed out of plank, chiefly, of maple and iron wood. They are then "turned" (that is made round), polished and stained. The "natural sticks," not very long ago, were all imported from England. But that has been changed, and we now send England a part of our own supply, which consists principally of hawthorne and huckleberry, which come from New York and New Jersey, and of oak, ash, hickory, and wild cherry.

If you were to see these sticks, often crooked and gnarled, with a piece of the root left on, you would think they would make very shabby sticks for umbrellas. But they are sent to a factory where they are steamed and straitened, and then to a carver, who cuts the gnarled root-end into the image of a dog or horse's head, or any one of the thousand and one designs that you may see, many of which are exceedingly ugly. The artist has kindly made a picture for you of a "natural" stick just as it is brought from the ground where it grows, and, then again, the same stick after it has been prepared for the umbrella.

Of the imported "natural" sticks, the principal are olive, ebony, furze, snakewood, pimento, cinnamon, partridge, and bamboo. Perhaps you do not understand that a "natural" stick is one that has been a young tree, having grown to be just large enough for an umbrella stick, when it was pulled up, root and all, or with at least a part of the root. If, when you buy an umbrella that has the stick bent into a deep curve at the bottom for the handle, you may feel quite sure that it is of partridge wood, which does not grow large enough to furnish a knob for a handle, but, when steamed, admits of being bent.

The "runner," "ferule," "cap," "band," etc., form what is called umbrella furniture and for these articles there is a special manufactory. Another manufactory cuts and grooves wire of steel into the "ribs" and "stretchers." Formerly ribs were made out of cane or whalebone; but these materials are now seldom used. When the steel is grooved, it is called a "paragon" frame, which is the lightest and best made. It was invented by an Englishman named Fox, seventeen or eighteen years ago. The latest improvement in the manufacture of "ribs" is to give them an inward curve at the bottom, so that they will fit snugly around the stick, and which dispenses with the "tip cup,"--a cup-shaped piece of metal that closed over the tips.

Of course we should all like to feel that we Americans have wit enough to make everything used in making an umbrella. And so we have in a way; but it must be confessed that most of the silk used for umbrella covers, is brought from France. Perhaps if the Cheney Brothers who live at South Manchester in Connecticut, and manufacture such elegant silk for ladies' dresses, and such lovely scarfs and cravats for children, were to try and make umbrella silk, we would soon be able to say to the looms of France, "No more umbrella silk for America, thank you; we are able to supply our own!"

But the "Yankees" do make all their umbrella gingham, which is very nice. And one gingham factory that I have heard about has learned how to dye gingham such a _fast_ black, that no amount of rain or sun changes the color. The gingham is woven into various widths to suit umbrella frames of different size, and along each edge of the fabric a border is formed of large cords. As to alpaca, a dye-house is being built, not _more_ than a "thousand miles" from Philadelphia on the plan of English dye-houses, so that our home-made alpacas may be dyed as good and durable a black as the gingham receives; for although nobody minds carrying an _old_ umbrella, nobody likes to carry a faded one. Although there are umbrellas of blue, green and buff, the favorite hue seems to be black.

And now that we have all the materials together to make an umbrella, let us go into a manufactory and see exactly how all the pieces are put together.

First, here is the stick, which must be "mounted." By that you must understand that there are two springs to be put in, the ferule put on the top end, and if the handle is of other material than the stick, that must be put on.

The ugliest of all the work is the cutting of the slots in which the springs are put. These are first cut by a machine; but if the man who operates it is not careful, he will get some of his fingers cut off. But after the slot-cutting machine does its work, there is yet something to be done by another man with a knife before the spring can be put in. After the springs are set, the ferule is put on, and when natural sticks are used, as all are of different sizes, it requires considerable time and care to find a ferule to fit the stick, as well as in whittling off the end of the stick to suit the ferule. And before going any farther you will notice that all the counters in the various work-rooms are carpeted. The carpet prevents the polished sticks from being scratched, and the dust from sticking to the umbrella goods.

After the handle is put on the stick and a band put on for finish or ornament, the stick goes to the frame-maker, who fastens the stretchers to the ribs, strings the top end of the ribs on a wire which is fitted into the "runner notch;" then he strings the lower ends of the "stretchers" on a wire and fastens it in the "runner," and then when both "runners" are securely fixed the umbrella is ready for the cover.

As this is a very important part of the umbrella, several men and women are employed in making it. In the room where the covers are cut, you will at first notice a great number of V shaped things hanging against the wall on either side of the long room. These letter Vs are usually made of wood, tipped all around with brass or some other fine metal, and are of a great variety of sizes. They are the umbrella cover patterns, as you soon make out. To begin with, the cutter lays his silk or gingham very smoothly out on a long counter, folding it back and forth until the fabric lies eight or sixteen times in thickness, the layers being several yards in length. (But I must go back a little and tell you that both edges of the silk, or whatever the cover is to be, has been hemmed by a woman, on a sewing machine before it is spread out on the counter). Well, when the cutter finds that he has the silk smoothly arranged, with the edges even, he lays on his pattern, and with a sharp knife quickly draws it along two sides of it, and in a twinkling you see the pieces for perhaps two umbrellas cut out; this is so when the silk, or material, is sixteen layers thick and the umbrella cover is to have but eight pieces.

After the cover is cut, each piece is carefully examined by a woman to see that there are no holes nor defects in it, for one bad piece would spoil a whole umbrella.

Then a man takes the pieces and stretches the cut edges. This stretching must be so skilfully done that the whole length of the edge be evenly stretched. This stretching is necessary in order to secure a good fit on the frame.

After this the pieces go to the sewing-room, where they are sewed together by a woman, on a sewing-machine, in what is called a "pudding-bag" seam. The sewing-machine woman must have the machine-tension just right or the thread of the seam will break when the cover is stretched over the frame.