Each type is marked upon one side by slight nicks, by sight and touch
of which the compositor is guided in rapidly placing them right side
up in the line. They are taken, one by one, between thumb and
forefinger, while the mind not only spells out each word, but is
always carrying phrases and whole sentences ahead of the fingers, and
each letter, syllable and word is set in its order in lines in the
composing stick, each line being spaced out in the stick so as to
exactly fit the column width, this process being repeated until the
stick is full. Then the stickful is emptied upon a galley. Then, when
the page or the paper is "up," as the printers phrase it, the galleys
are collected, and the foreman makes up the pages, article by article,
as they come to us in the printed paper--the preliminary processes of
printing proofs from the galleys, reading them by the proof readers,
who mark the errors, and making the corrections by the compositors
(each one correcting his own work), having been quietly and swiftly
going on all the while. The page is made up on a portable slab of
iron, upon which it is sent to the stereotyping room. There wet
stereotyping paper, several sheets in thickness, is laid over the
page, and this almost pulpy paper is rapidly and dexterously beaten
evenly all over with stiff hair brushes until the soft paper is
pressed down into all the interstices between the type; then this is
covered with blankets and the whole is placed upon a steam chest,
where it is subjected to heat and pressure until the wet paper becomes
perfectly dry.
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