Harry's newspaper; or The young publisher

Foreword

The technical details of the printing business, found here and there in this story, might at first thought appear too abstruse for young people to read, or not sufficiently understandable by the majority. But the truth is that nowadays, in every country town, the high schools publish a school paper, and the boys and girls come to the printing offices, the girls with the copy that they have written for their department in the paper, and the boys to make up the forms. Sometimes the girls do likewise, and they learn quite a great deal about printing and the newspaper business. They talk it so much that the children in the different grades become impreg¬ nated by the printing and publishing aroma.

This story of a young man who start¬ ed and ran a country newspaper, even though there is a good deal of technical explanation about the printing, will, I believe, be well received by the majority of the young people, and its technical details will not be considered too ob¬ scure nor too dry for them to read.

STEPHEN A. D. COX.

The prices quoted throughout the book may vary slightly from exact quotations of prices for similar out¬ lays at this current date.

THE PUBLISHERS.

This book is published as an inspira* tion to all ambitious American boys seeking to establish themselves in a business career

Contents

Page

I Thrown On His Own Resources - - - 15

II Ready for Business.- - - 29

Chapter I

Harry Weston was an orphan at eighteen years of age. He resided in the town of Dellwood, in southeastern Colo¬ rado, about seventy miles from Denver. After paying his father’s funeral ex¬ penses with the money his father had left in the bank, he was penniless. He hardly knew what to do. He could not get work in any of the stores, as the merchants in the town had all the em¬ ployees they needed. He sat down and pondered. What should he do? If he went to Denver he might be able to get employment, and then again he might is not. While considering matters, an idea came to him.

One year previously he had visited an invalid uncle in Allentown, and Harry had taken care of him till he died. This was over a period of six months, and during that time Harry had worked in a printing shop, as his uncle did not need constant attention; and he had learned much about the printing busi¬ ness. He could set type, make up forms and put them on the press. He even understood how to do plain commercial job printing and had printed quite a number of neat jobs on the job-press.

Why not start a little paper some¬ where? he asked himself. He knew he could make a success of it. But having no money was a serious drawback. He was a youth of ability and resourceful¬ ness, however, and he felt sure he could overcome this difficulty.

He had a sister, his only living rela¬ tive and a school-teacher, teaching at a point about twenty miles distant. He knew she had some money saved up, as she had told him so when she was at the funeral and had offered to let him have some to help defray the expenses if the money in the bank had not been suffi¬ cient. He could borrow some of her.

He went at once to see his sister, who told him she would lend him all the money she could spare, viz., one hun¬ dred dollars, but she doubted its being enough for his purpose. He said he could make it do, and that he would accept the loan and pay her the money back in due time, with interest at the rate of six per cent. She agreed to this, and handed him the one hundred dol¬ lars, taking his note for the amount. He thanked her, bade her good-bye and went back to Dellwood.

Next day he went to a firm in Denver that sold printing machinery, type and all kinds of printing material. Introduc¬ ing himself to the manager, he asked if he would sell him a little printing out¬ fit suitable for printing a small-sized paper, letting him pay a small sum down and the rest in six months or a year.

The manager of the firm looked at the youth interestedly and asked where he expected to start his paper.

“At Coalville,” replied Harry. “That’s a little coal-mining town of about four¬ teen hundred population about seventy-five miles from here. I was there once, and liked the looks of the town. It has no paper and I think that I may be able to do pretty well there.”

The manager nodded and then asked: “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“Are your parents living?”

“No, sir. I’m an orphan. My mother died several years ago and my father died only a few days ago. I have a sister, a school-teacher, otherwise I am alone in the world.”

The manager of the type foundry looked thoughtful. ‘What do you know about running a paper?” he asked. “Have you had any experience?”

“I worked six months in an office in Allentown, and learned something about the newspaper business. I can set type, make up forms and do most any work that would need to be done in a small office such as the one I am hoping to start.”

The manager pondered a few minutes and then said: “It would be unusual for us to sell a minor an outfit, and chiefly on credit, but still as you look like a bright, honest young man, we might sell you a small equipment, you paying twenty per cent cash and we taking mortgage notes for the balance, you to take up one of these notes each month, with six per cent interest added. How would that do?”

“That would be splendid, sir,” said Harry, his face lighting up. “Only—I have only one hundred dollars, and that would buy such a small outfit, even if I only pay twenty per cent cash, that per¬ haps you would not care to bother with it.”

The manager smiled. “That makes the deal all the more logical,” he said, “as when we take a risk like this, we are glad it is not a large one. What size paper do you plan to start in this little mining town you mentioned? It won’t need to be very large, as there won’t be such a great amount of news to print.”

“A seven-column folio paper ought to be big enough/’ agreed Harry. “And I expect to have one side of it already printed, with foreign news on that side —‘ready print’, as such papers are called—and I will print the local news on the other side.”

The manager nodded. “That might do,” he said. “You may be able to print a very good little paper, seeing that you can print it on an army hand press, and such a press we can sell you cheaply— only eighty-five dollars. We have a lot of second-hand body and job and adver¬ tising type we can let you have cheaply also, and such other material as you will need. We will sell you the complete out¬ fit to the amount of two hundred dol¬ lars, and you can pay us forty-four dollars cash. The rest we will divide up into twelve mortgage notes of thirteen dollars each, payable one each month, with six per cent added. That will be satisfactory, will it?”

“Oh, yes indeed, sir.”

“Very well.”

The manager of the type-foundry liked the looks of this youth who had such sound business qualities. He went with him through the salesroom and showed him the press and other ma¬ terial, and annotated what Harry se¬ lected for purchase. The press was of interest to the youth, as they had a cylinder press in the office where he had worked, while this army press looked scarcely too heavy to be tucked under the arm of a strong man to be carried in that manner. It consisted simply of an iron bed for the type-form to rest on, while by turning a crank at one side, the bed and form were moved from one end of the iron frame to the other, passing at the same time underneath an iron

THE OLD ARMY PRESS cylinder about five inches in diameter, this making sufficient pressure on the paper placed on the type and held in place by a thin metal flange around the edges, called a friskit, to print the paper very nicely. The type first had to be inked by hand, so an ink-roller was necessary, and this was added to the list of material for the outfit.

Harry picked out the type he liked best, of the second-hand kind the man¬ ager had mentioned, of both body type, —the size used for the reading matter— and advertising and job type, the large¬ sized type. He bought a lot of leads and slugs also, and some wooden reglets —these being strips of maple one-eighth inch thick and half an inch wide, to be sawed up into different lengths that he might need at any time. He also pur¬ chased a ten-gallon can of ink for print¬ ing the paper, and some black and color inks in collapsible tubes for use in job¬ printing. A full-sized stand, to put the type-cases on, and with flanges under¬ neath, for the advertising and job-print¬ ing type-cases to rest on, was added to his purchases. Also an imposing stone for the forms to rest on, and a stand for the stone were included. A little job-press, 7x11 inches (inside chase mea¬ surements) was selected, twelve brass column rules, and other brass rules, short lengths, or “labor-saving” kind, as it is called. Some brass-bottomed galleys, a mallet, planer and a benzine can were added, and then he told the manager to figure up his bill. The man¬ ager did so, and it amounted to $198.50.

“I would have liked to have bought a paper-cutter,” said Harry, “but I won’t have to cut much paper and can do it with an ordinary hand paper-cutting knife—like this one here in the catalogue,” and pointed to a picture in the catalogue.

“Yes, that will do very well,” said the manager, “and you can have the people at the paper house where you buy your paper cut it to the proper sizes, ready to print. Poster paper, cut 6x9 and 8x12 inches will be the sizes you will need most, and all the cutting you will have to do will be on jobs that require paper of small size, such as receipts, and so forth.”

Harry started and looked disconcert¬ ed. “Goodness!” he exclaimed. “I don’t know what I’ll do. I forgot that I will have to have job stock, and I won’t have money enough to pay for it, as I’m spending it all with you, except¬ ing enough to pay freight on the presses, type and other material. Do you suppose the paper house people will send me paper on credit?”

“The ‘ready print’ people will,” he said, “as they carry advertising on the side that they print and they want a big circulation so they can get bigger prices for the advertising. I judge the people that sell paper for the job-print¬ ing department will do likewise.”

“Thanks for that information,” said Harry, and then he turned to finish the purchasing of the outfit. He told the manager to include the paper-knife and some border to put around advertise¬ ments, making the amount an even two hundred dollars. The manager did so, after which Harry paid him the forty-four dollars and signed the twelve mortgage-notes of thirteen dollars each,—and the transaction was com¬ pleted.

“We’ll box up your outfit and ship it to-morrow,” said the manager. “I am glad you came to us and bought of our firm, Mr. Weston,” he continued, “and I most heartily hope you will make your paper a great success.”

“Thanks, sir, and thanks for having sold me the outfit on such favorable terms,” said Harry, and took his de¬ parture.

A visit to the firm that furnished papers to country publishers with one side of the paper already printed, and to the house that sold job stock, as paper is called that is used in job-print¬ ing, yielded good results, for each of these firms told him they would send him what paper he needed, and he could pay the first of each month.

Having accomplished the business on which he had gone to Denver, Harry boarded the train and went to Coalville, which was to be the scene of his news¬ paper-publishing venture.

Chapter II READY FOR BUSINESS

Harry rented a room and engaged board at the home of one of the miners, and then went back downtown. He looked around till he found a room up¬ stairs over a grocery store, that would do for his printing-office. The grocery store proprietor, a German named Gebhart, owned the building, and told the youthful prospective publisher that he might have the room for almost noth¬ ing, as it had stood empty several years and he didn’t know of anyone else who would probably be wanting to rent it; so Harry rented the room, paying the first month’s rent in advance. It cost three dollars, as the German said that would be sufficient, and he would take it out in printing after the paper was started—Harry had, of course, told him he intended putting in a printing outfit and would start a newspaper.

Harry had packed his trunk and suit¬ case before leaving Dellwood to go to Denver to purchase his printing outfit, and had instructed the people at whose home he had boarded while attending to the burial of his father, to send the trunk and suitcase by express, stating the date for them to be sent. They would be there even now, he felt sure, and on going around to the express office he found that he was right. Pay¬ ing the express charges, he hired a man to haul them to the place where he had engaged room and board, and he and the man carried them up to his room.

The type foundry people of whom he had purchased his printing outfit in Denver were as good as their word. They must have shipped the printing press and material the next day after he purchased it, for it arrived on the third day, and was unloaded from the freightcar onto the railway station platform. It created considerable interest among the people at the station, even the sta¬ tion agent stopping a few moments to look at the printing paraphernalia.

“Somebody is going to start a print¬ ing office here,” he said to one of the men standing around. “That will be good. The more industries we have represented, the better it is for the town.”

“That’s the way to look at it,” the man replied.

Harry followed him into his office, and asked how much the freight was on the printing material that had just been unloaded from the car. “I’m Harry Weston,” he added, “and it’s my prop¬ erty.”

“Oh,” the agent said, looking at the youth with some surprise and no little interest. “So you are the person who is going to put in the printing office.”

“Yes, sir; and I am going to do not only job printing, but am going to start a newspaper, too. I don’t know how it will do, but I hope the people here will like the idea of having a newspaper and will subscribe for it, the majority of them at any rate.”

“Likely they will do so,” said the sta¬ tion agent, with a friendly look and intonation. “You can count on me as a subscriber, for one, when you get the paper started. My name is Garland, Henry Garland. The freight charges are fourteen dollars and seventy cents.”

“I’ll make a note of your name and send you a copy of the first issue, and place your name in my subscription ledger as my first subscriber,” said Harry. “And thanks for subscribing.

Here is the freight money,” and he placed a ten and a five-dollar bill on the window-ledge.

“Rented a room yet, for your office?” asked Garland as he handed out thirty cents in change, and placed the bank¬ notes in the money-drawer.

“Yes, upstairs over Mr. Gebhart’s grocery store.”

“That ought to do first rate. It’s right in the heart of the business portion of our town.”

“Yes, it’s a good location.”

Then Harry went out onto the plat¬ form and found a drayman there, look¬ ing at the printing paraphernalia.

“Who does this belong to?” he asked of one of the men standing around. “I’d like the job of moving it to wherever its owner wants it moved.”

“It’s mine,” said Harry. “What will you charge to haul it to Gebhart’s groeery store and help get it upstairs into the room above?”

The drayman eyed the printing ma¬ terial a few moments and then said:

“Five dollars. Some of it’s pretty heavy, or I’d do it cheaper.”

“That won’t be too much,” said Harry. “Let’s load it into the dray.”

He and the man loaded the printing press and other printing material into the dray, and then Harry got up on the seat beside the man, and they were soon at the grocery store.

It took an hour and a half to get the printing outfit upstairs and into the room Harry had rented, and then he paid the drayman, who departed.

Harry took off his coat and hat and hung them on a nail in one corner of the room, and then, after a few mo¬ ments of thought, went downstairs and into the grocery store.

“May I borrow a hatchet or hammer, Mr. Gebhart?” he asked of the pro¬ prietor. “I need one to uncrate my printing material.”

The man handed him a hammer, and Harry thanked him and went back up¬ stairs. He went to work in real earnest and in an hour’s time had the printing outfit all uncrated. The wooden slats he stood on end in a closet at the back end of the room.

The rack for the type-cases to rest on he placed near the front of the room, at one side, where he could get good light, so he could see to pick up the type when setting it, as the types are small, and good light is needed. The job-press he placed in the corner opposite, edging it into place gradually. The table for the imposing stone to rest on he placed at one side of the room, near the center. The stone itself was too heavy for him to lift alone, as was also the printing press. He would have to have help to handle these, and so he put on his coat and hat and went out to a carpenter-shop about halfway down the block.

“I’ll tell you what I want,” said Harry, when the carpenter turned to him inquiringly. “I am in need of a narrow table about six feet long. It ought to be pretty strong, but pine wood will do. I want to put a printing press on it, a hand-press, weighing only about one hundred and fifty pounds, but in printing, the form is run through under an iron cylinder and this would make the table shake and quiver and rack it in due time unless tolerably strong. What will you charge me to make a table of this kind?”

“Where is your press? Perhaps I had better take a look at it, and then I can tell better how strong a table to make,” said the carpenter. He seemed friendly and somewhat interested. “I didn’t know we were going to have a printing office in our town,” he con¬ tinued. “Are you its owner?”

“Yes, sir,” said Harry. “I’m going to do job printing, and also I am going to publish a newspaper. I don’t know how well it will succeed, but hope the people here and in this vicinity will be pleased and subscribe. I have one sub¬ scriber already,” he added with a smile. “Mr. Garland, the station agent, told me I might put his name on my list as a subscriber, and that’s some encourage¬ ment.”

“I’ll take the paper, too,” said the car¬ penter. “My name is Merwin, James Merwin.” He, like the station agent, seemed to have taken a liking to this young fellow who was possessed of such good business ambitions as to be on the point of starting a newspaper in their town, and he only a youth of about eighteen years. They were leaving the carpenter shop as he was talking, Harry leading the way.

“Thanks,” said Harry. “I’ll enter your name in my subscription ledger along with Mr. Garland’s.”

They were soon upstairs in the room where the printing press and material were, and Harry pointed to the press, resting on the floor. It was so small and unimposing-looking that the man almost smiled. “I wouldn’t have thought a newspaper could be printed on such a small press as that,” he said.

“The table that I want you to make will be practically a part of the press,” said Harry. “In effect, I mean. You see, cylinder presses have an iron frame reaching to the floor, and actually a part of the press, while with this hand-press it is different, as I have to have the frame portion made extra, and as this little press isn’t heavy, a wooden table will do.”

The carpenter nodded. “I see,” he said. “What you have explained is clear.”

He stepped forward and lifted up the press, taking hold of the cylinder at one side. “I’ll make you a table strong enough to stand the grind of printing,” he said. “I’ll charge you three dollars.”

“That will be cheap enough. How soon can you have it ready?”

“By three o’clock this afternoon. I have some other work I have to do first. I’ll help you bring it up here, too, for good measure,” and he smiled.

“Thank you,” said Harry.

The carpenter departed and Harry set about other work he could do. He placed the type-cases on the rack, and the job-cases he slipped into place on the wooden flanges underneath the top cases, and then he put the labor-saving leads and slugs in an extra case he had purchased for the purpose and slipped it in under the type-cases; after which he began laying, as it is termed, the job and advertising type. This consists of putting the type in the job-cases. The new font is the type to which the word “laying” applies, specifically explained, and not to the second-hand type, which is tied up just as it was printed when last used for that purpose, and this is simply “thrown in,” as it is termed in printing parlance.

When he had gotten all the job and advertising type laid and thrown in, Harry went to work on the body type. This was small-sized type, eight-point size, which is the size almost universally used in printing both country and metropolitan newspapers. All printing type is based on what is termed “the point system,” which means that the types are graduated sizes, differing in size from each other not less than two points, which equals one-eighteenth of an inch. Previous to the adoption of the point system, the type differed in size only one point, which was only one-thirty-sixth of an inch. This was deemed not enough of a difference, hence the adoption of the point system.

The eight-point “body type,” as it is called, was all second-hand, and was tied up in paper, with a string around each lot of type, about five or six inches in size, just as it had last been used in printing. As there were about one hun¬ dred pounds—enough to fill two type-cases, both upper and lower, (the upper case contains the capitals and small capitals and the lower case the small letters)—this work could not be done quickly but would furnish Harry enough to do during thfe rest of the day. He had one of the cases, both upper and lower, filled by the time the carpenter had said he would have the table for the printing press finished.

Putting on his hat and coat, he went around to the shop and found the table ready. He paid Mr. Merwin three dol¬ lars, then they lifted up the table, carried it out and down the street and upstairs into the printing-office.

“Where do you want it put?” the car¬ penter asked. “Show me the spot and we’ll place the table there and then I’ll help you put the press on it.”

“Here,” said Harry, indicating the point at which he wished the table placed. After placing it, they lifted the press and set it on the table.

CARRIED THE TABLE DOWN THE STREET

“There,” said Mr. Merwin, with a smile. “There’s your press complete.”

Harry nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “Yes, the press looks better on the table than on the floor.”

“Quite right,” the carpenter said. “Well, I wish you success,” and de¬ parted.

Another man came in just at that moment. He was one who had been at the railway station when the printing outfit was unloaded and had been aroused to dropping around by the usual incentive, curiosity. Harry put down some type he was just going to throw into the case, and nodding to the man, said: “I’m glad some big, ablebodied man dropped in. I have some lifting here that is too heavy for me alone. It’s this stone,” and he indicated the imposing stone resting on the floor. “I want it placed on this table,” and he nodded toward the stand that he had purchased for the stone to rest on. “Will you help me put it up there?”

“Sure I will,” said the man goodnaturedly, and he and Harry lifted the stone—with some difficulty, for it was pretty heavy—and placed it on the stand.

Harry offered the man a quarter, but he wouldn’t take it. “I wouldn’t accept pay for doing a little lifting like that,” he said.

“All right, and thank you, sir,” said Harry. “Perhaps I can do you a favor sometime.”

In response to the man’s friendly questions, Harry told him his plans for starting a newspaper in Coalville, and for doing job-printing for the business men, and explained that he hoped to make a success of his business venture.

“I guess you’ll do pretty well with your newspaper,” the man said, “for that’s something we’ve been needing, I’m sure, and I’ve heard some of the business men say they wished we had a paper here. You ought to get quite a good deal of job-printing to do, too.”

“I hope so,” said Harry. “And thank you for your encouragement.”

“That’s all right,” the friendly man said. “I wish you success. I’ll sub¬ scribe for your paper, dating from the first issue. My name’s Williams, Frank Williams.”

“Thank you, Mr. Williams. I’ll put your name on my subscription list along with those of Mr. Garland, the station agent, and Mr. Merwin, the carpenter who made the table that the press rests on. They both subscribed.”

“All right. I’ll call again and pay for a year’s subscription as soon as you get out the first issue.” Then he took his leave.

Harry finished distributing the rest of the body type into the other pair of cases by half-past five o’clock, and then looked around him with considerable satisfaction. There was the new table, with the printing press resting on it. There was the table, or stand, with the imposing stone resting on it. There was the job-press in the corner, opposite the rack, and type-cases. There was the type-cases rack, containing the type-cases filled with body type on top, job cases with the job and advertising type underneath, and the case with the labor-saving leads and slugs in it. There were the wooden reglets, the composing sticks, a small one for body-type setting and a long one for setting jobs and advertisements. There were the ink-roller, the can of ink, the benzine can, the small collapsible tubes of variouscolored job-printing inks, and other items of printing paraphernalia.

“Well, here I am with my printing presses and material all in place,” mur¬ mured Harry. “Now the real work of getting ready to publish the first issue of my paper will begin. I must see all the merchants, tell them how many papers I am going to print and get some advertisements from them, then set the advertisements. Then I will have to get news enough for the first issue, and will have to write a salutatory; how¬ ever, I’ll make that brief and to the point and of course friendly to the place. This and the local news items will have to be set, after which the forms will have to be made up, and all will be ready for the printing of the first num¬ ber of the paper.

“The ready-printed sheets to print the local news on will be here a week from next Thursday, and I will get the paper out Friday afternoon of next week. This is Wednesday, which leaves three days of this week, and there will be four days of next week in which to do the work I have to do. I instructed the paper people to send me twenty quires of paper. That’s four hundred and eighty papers, and ought to be enough to start with. It only costs eighteen cents per quire, but I don’t want to print more papers than I will need.” He pondered a few moments, and then went on: “I haven’t decided what to name my paper. Let’s see, what shall I call it?” Again he pondered a few moments, and then said: “I’ll call it ‘The Coalville News’. Yes, that’ll do. ‘The Coalville News’ it shall be, and long live ‘The Coalville News’!” And with a smile he put on his coat and hat and went out, locking the door, and made his way to his boarding-house, where he did full justice to Mrs. Tomp¬ kins’ splendid supper of fried chicken.