quickening and cheapening the making of books and other printed matter, so that to-day printers turn out books and papers in large quantities in an amazingly short time.

The Printing Press in Boston at Which Franklin Worked

The first newspaper in the world is believed to have been the Frankfurter Journal, published about 1615 A.D. at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in Germany. But of this there is no certainty. Newspapers, however, had their beginnings in Germany and Italy some time in the latter part of the sixteenth or the first part of the seventeenth century. It is believed that the Weekly News, started in London in 1622, was the first newspaper published in England. In the United States there was a printing press attached to Harvard College, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, as early as 1638, two years after the college was founded, and only six years after the settlement of Boston. With this one exception, for a long time there were no printing presses in the colonies. A newspaper called Publick Occurrences was started in Boston in 1690, but it was soon afterward suppressed by the British government. The first permanent newspaper in America was the Boston News Letter, established at Boston in 1704.

One of the greatest wonders and triumphs of civilization is the great modern daily newspaper. It occupies a giant "sky-scraper" as its home, employs a small army of workmen, spends vast sums of money in obtaining and printing the news, and is sold for a cent per copy. The head of a newspaper staff is the editor-in-chief. He is in a general way responsible to the publishers for the paper. Next in command is the managing editor who has charge of the actual work of publication. Subordinate to the managing editor are other editors who have control over various departments of the paper. The telegraph editor looks after news sent by telegraph; the city editor has charge of happenings in the city of publication; the exchange editor clips items from other papers; the religious editor attends to affairs of religion; the sporting editor collects and arranges news of sports and games; the commercial editor works with the markets and matters of commerce and business; the society editor gives attention to social functions; and the dramatic editor takes note of the theaters. The city editor commands a company of perhaps half a hundred reporters, who are sent scurrying daily throughout the city to bring in the news from its various sources. One goes to the ball game, another to a funeral, another to the courts, another to a hotel to interview some prominent person, and still another goes to a political convention. There are also photographers, illustrators, and editorial writers.

At the close of the day, special correspondents and representatives of press associations in every nook and corner of the earth send the world's news for the day by telegraph and ocean cable direct into the newspaper office. A king has died; a battle has been fought; storm, earthquake, or fire has destroyed a city; or there has been some achievement in science or art. The local reporters have brought in the news of the city. After all has been quickly written, examined, and edited, the reports are sent to the composing room to be put into type.

The foreman of the composing room distributes the manuscript, called copy, among skilled operators, who by means of type-setting machines put it into type. Impressions are then made from this type on strips of paper. These impressions are called proofs. Proof readers compare these proofs with the original copy for the purpose of correcting errors. After the correction of errors the columns of type, called galleys, are locked up in a form which is the size of a page. The form is next sent to the stereotyping room, where an exact reproduction is made in metal. The metal plates are put in place on the presses. The machinery is started. Tons of white paper are fed into the presses at one end. Out at another in an instant comes the finished newspaper, printed, cut, and folded. These papers are counted and delivered automatically to the mailing room, at the rate of about 100,000 copies in an hour, for the improved, modern press. After their arrival at the mailing room, papers that are for out-of-town subscribers are wrapped in packages, addressed, and carried in express wagons to fast mail trains, which carry this record of what man did the previous day to readers hundreds of miles away.

This afternoon at five o'clock a prominent man dies suddenly in San Francisco. To-night at midnight the newspapers of St. Louis, Chicago, and New York will come from the press with his picture and a long sketch of his life. How is this possible in so short a time? The papers have on file, arranged in alphabetical order, photographs of prominent persons and places and biographical sketches of great men, kept up to date. Whenever any noted person, place, or thing is made conspicuous by any event, the picture and sketch are taken from the files and used.

It is the electric telegraph that makes possible the modern daily newspaper. Before its invention, papers resorted to various devices for transmitting news. For some years messengers riding ponies brought news from Washington to the New York papers. These papers also utilized small, swift-sailing vessels to meet incoming ships bearing news from foreign countries.

A recent bulletin on printing and publishing issued by the Census Bureau of the United States government showed that there were in the United States 21,394 newspapers and periodicals, printed in twenty-seven different languages. Of these, 2,452 were daily; 15,046 weekly; 2,500 monthly; 353 quarterly; 58 tri-weekly; 645 semi-weekly; and 340 of all other kinds. 20,184 of these papers were English; 619 German; 158 Scandinavian; 58 Italian; 41 French; 44 Bohemian; 31 Spanish; 18 Hebrew; 21 Dutch; 7 Chinese; 9 Japanese; 5 Greek; 46 Polish; 5 Hungarian; 3 Arabic; and two each in the Welsh, Syrian and Gaelic languages. The capital invested in printing and publishing in the United States was a little more than $385,000,000. It would take one person twelve hours a day every day for six thousand years, or from the beginnings of Egyptian and Babylonian civilization to the dawn of the twentieth century, to read at an average rate all the papers published in the United States during a single year.

CHAPTER III

THE STEAM ENGINE