4,66 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[December, 
dampening room, and arranging them conveniently at 
hand, for the pressmen. We pass into the 
DAMPENING ROOM, 
where the paper is wet down by machinery, in a novel 
and beautiful manner. The cut of the Dampening Room 
will give the reader some notion as to how this process 
is performed. 
The Bullock press, on which the Sun is printed, prints 
from a continuous sheet, 
which is wound up in the 
form of a huge cylinder, as 
shown in the cut of the press 
room, and also in the cut of 
the dampening process. 
The machine for wetting 
down or dampening the 
paper is so constructed 
that it unwinds it from one 
roll and at the same time 
winds it up into another 
roll; and as the paper thus 
passes from one roll to an¬ 
other it is subjected to a 
uniform shower of the finest 
spray, which dampens it in 
every fibre to just exactly 
the degree which is requi¬ 
site for it to print to the 
best advantage — the con¬ 
struction of tlie press, the 
rapidity of the motion, and 
the force of the pressure all 
considered. 
And now, as the pressmen 
have begun to wake up, and 
are beginning to put the ste¬ 
reotype plates on the cylind¬ 
ers, and the steam begins to give token of its coming, 
we will briefly state, that that marvel of beauty, capacity, 
economy and power which is known as the Bullock 
Press must be seen in operation to be comprehended and 
appreciated. After one has seen any other press of equal 
printing-capacity in operation, and counted the many 
persons required to attend upon it, and measured the 
space it occupies, and heard its thunderings and wash¬ 
ings, let him go down into the Sun press room and see 
the Bullock Press quietly doing its work, with seemingly 
no one to attend upon it, and he will be ready to ap¬ 
preciate the affectionate commendation of the foreman, 
when he exclaims, as he 
lays his hand upon the 
Press, “ It’s just as snug 
and tidy as a woman, and a 
deal easier to manage.” 
And now let us go up to 
the composition room again, 
where over the first page of 
the Sun the last final strug¬ 
gle of matter against space 
is to begin. It is now 2 
o’clock A. M. The form 
must be in the stereotyper’s 
room in fifteen minutes. 
There is matter enough on 
the make-up table to fill four 
pages, and every line of it 
is important. What’s to be 
done ? especially as a fresh 
batch of copy has just come 
up, marked “must,” from 
the Managing Editor, who 
is still at work below. Now 
is seen the value of under¬ 
standing every part of one's 
business , especially the me¬ 
chanical part. The Night 
Editor is a practical printer, 
copy-cutter, proof-reader, 
anything and everything 
that may be needed. lie 
looks over the type—does 
not have to resort to the 
proofs—and orders out this 
and cuts down that, and 
reads the proof of new arti¬ 
cles from the type; and finally, when a crisis comes, 
the Managing Editor who is also a practical printer, and 
knows every in and out of the business, goes to the case 
and helps set up a telegram, which he condenses as he 
sets it, and hands it over ready to the Night Editor’s 
hand ; “ Good night ” comes in from the telegraph offices; 
and the page is completed, and the form is locked up 
(that is, fastened so the type can not fall out) and trundled 
into the stercotypers’ room, exactly at 15 minutes past 2 
o’clock A. M. 
“ We gain that last 15 minutes ” said the Night Editor 
to us, as we w^re following the form to the stereotypers’, 
“ by having our third Bullock Press. When we had only 
two of ’em, we had to go to press 15 minutes earlier ; I 
and that last 15 minutes is a big thing—a very big thing. 
The cream of the news often comes then—as you saw to 
night. On election night, I kept the form back till half 
past two; and if the President of the United States 
should be assassinated I’d keep it till three, just as sure as 
you live !” This declaration was made with indescribable 
emphasis and solemnity, as though no stretch of author¬ 
ity or audacity could any further go. 
But look at the stereotypers. They are also on the home 
stretch, and how magnificently they work. Every man 
knows just exactly what to do, and does it to perfection 
just in the nick of time; and the total result is that the 
six casts of the first page of the Sun are on their way to 
the lower regions in just thirty minutes from the time 
the stereotypers received the form. That is only five 
minutes to a cast. 
From the stereotype room we now go down to the 
publication office, to see the newsmen and newsboys buy 
their checks. When the delivery of the paper begins, 
which will be in a few minutes, the rush will be so great 
that there will be no time to make change ; and so news¬ 
men and newsboys provide themselves with metal checks, 
about the size of a two'cent piece, on which is stamped 
the number of papers for which they have paid. If a 
newsboy wants 12 papers, ho pays 10 cents — the Sun is 
sold to him at 1% cents a copy—and receives a check 
which entitles him to 12 papers. This check he presents 
to the man below of whom he gets his papers, who de¬ 
livers his 12 Suns to him, and drops the check, through a 
hole in the delivery counter, into a box kept for the pur¬ 
pose. The smallest check calls for three papers, and 
the largest for eight thousand. 
On entering the publication office, we find a number 
of men and boys buying their checks, and several tired 
little fellows lying asleep on the floor ; and on the grat¬ 
ings outside, through which the warm steam and hot air 
come up, are other children also lying asleep. It is a 
raw and chilly morning, and the “iron bedstead,” as the 
little fellows call the gra¬ 
ting, affords them a luxu¬ 
rious couch, through which 
he warmth comes upon their 
pinched and withered and 
ill-clad bodies like airs from 
Heaven. 
Poor boys 1 We have been 
observing and studying 
them these twenty years. 
Wo remember their “ O-de- 
Ram Society,” formed in 
1853,to which all good news¬ 
boys were allowed to belong, 
who wanted to go to 
Heaven, and be angels after 
the pattern of little Cordelia 
Howard,who was then play¬ 
ing “Little Eva,” in Uncle 
Tom's Cabin, which at that 
time was having its famous 
run at the old Chatham 
Theatre. It took us some 
time to hunt down the 
origin of their title, and to 
find out what it meant. 
The boys themselves could 
only say that it was “O- 
de-Ram, and that’s all about 
it.” But at last we got at the secret. Old Uncle Tom 
used to sing a hymn to the dying Eva, beginning, “ O, do. 
Lamb, de bressed Lamb,” and ending with a chorus, 
in which the same words were several times repeated. 
Uncle Tom used to sing the hymn with a strong plan¬ 
tation roll and accent, and the newsboys understood 
him to say “ O-de-Ram,” etc. The tender-hearted little 
fellows used to cry, as all the rest of us did, over Eva’s 
dying advice and farewell to Uncle Tom; and they also re¬ 
solved, with Uncle Tom, to meet the dear child in Heaven • 
To them, that vision of innocence and beauty was the 
absolute incarnation of angelhood; and the scene amid 
which she nightly took her 
mimic departure for the 
Land of the Blessed, was 
to them an actual foretaste 
of eternal life. 
And so the little waifs 
formed their O-dc-Ram So¬ 
ciety, and tried to be good 
enough to become com¬ 
panions of Eva in the Bet¬ 
ter Land, and dreamed of 
her on their “iron bed¬ 
steads:” and every one of 
them probably hoped that 
he would somehow have her 
for his own especial angel. 
The newsboys of that day, 
sixteen years ago, have 
passed from the scene, and 
become men; many have 
died, and some fell fighting 
for their country, and these 
now know the secrets of the 
eternal world. Let us hope 
that every one has found his 
Angel here or there. 
And now back to the press 
room again. The plates aro 
all on. At I minutes to three 
the first press starts and de¬ 
livers 200 papers a minute. 
In two minutes the counters 
begin to count off, and the 
waiting newsboys and 
newsmen begin to receive 
their papers. At 2 minutes 
after three the second press begins to throw off its 200 
Suns a minute. At 9 minutes after three the third press 
starts ; and now here they come, 000 Suns a minute, both 
sides printed simultaneously; and if necessary, the num¬ 
ber can be forced up to S00. And now ensues a scene 
which it is impossible to describe, but which our artist 
has drawn with fidelity, as seen below. 
The counting of the papers is one of the most interest¬ 
ing and astounding performances in tlie whole business. 
There is one man who counts 300 a minute, and another 
who can count 400 a minute. Let the readers of this 
STEREOTYTE ROOM. 
TRESS ROOM. 
