Hand-Set Type.
One night, about twelve o'clock, the typesetting-machine began to brag to the whole printing-office. "I am the latest product of the printer's art," said the machine. "I have enormously increased the output of the printing-shops. And not only do I do far more work than the old-style hand-set type, but I do it much more cheaply. It is only a short time before hand-setting will be abolished entirely." Upon this a case of type in a corner of the shop ventured to speak up: "Your work may be turned out faster and it may be cheaper, but is it better? Is it not mechanical? Is there room for taste? For instance, where a long syllable makes too wide spacing in a line, do you work backward over the lines already set and remedy the fault? Indeed you do not, or you would soon cease to be superior in amount and cheapness of work. You plunge ahead, and leave an ugly, wide-spaced line behind you." In reply the machine merely grunted; but the next morning in walked a publisher with a book manuscript. "This book," said he, "is for the swell trade, and I want it set in the best manner—hand-set, none of your machine setting. The type must show character and thoughtfulness. Put your most skillful compositors at work upon it." Thereupon, as the publisher left, anyone with a delicate ear could have heard a metallic type snicker running around the shop.