Chapter XI: Through Old Paul’s Work, Canongate

In the early years of last century, when the New Town of Edinburgh was beginning to show itself along the northern slopes of the valley of the Nor’ Loch, beneath the Castle and the High Street, all the printing-houses were to be found either down the closes or lanes or in some blind alley approached from the High Street or the Cowgate. The precincts were frequently noisome with the dirt and rubbish of long-past years. The building itself would have a peculiar odour of its own—a combination of rancid oil, mouldy paste, and printer’s ink, and few people would ever care to pass that way except on business. The printing-office would probably be located in what had at one time been a private dwelling-house, and rendered serviceable by the removal of partitioning walls, the erection of narrow winding stairs, and the joining of several apartments of neighbouring houses into one, not infrequently on varying levels.

Paul’s Work was entered by a small courtyard with an iron gateway leading to a narrow door immediately below an outside stair. This stair led to the counting-room, adjoining which was the room allotted to Sir Walter Scott on his visits. The window of this room is shown in the accompanying illustration.

In those days work began at either six or seven in the morning—the “devils” having been there an hour earlier for sweeping and cleaning. There was an hour, from nine to ten, for breakfast, a healthy arrangement long since given up under the pressure of modern business, which tends more and more to fewer breaks in the day—although the removal of work-places to suburban districts may also have had much to do with this change. The workmen now make their appearance at eight, and the dinner interval is from one to two, instead of from two to three as in former days.

Close by the entrance-doorway sat the time-keeper, a post long held by Mr. Smith, an old grey-headed man, father of Alexander Smith the poet, author of “A Life Drama,” and for some time Secretary to Edinburgh University. Passing upwards by devious stairways to what was known as the “long case-room,” here one would find about thirty or forty compositors, busily dipping their fingers into cases of types—spelling, capitalising, and punctuating line after line from the manuscript or “copy” before them—amidst the joke and chaff flying among themselves, and the noisy hammering of wooden “mallets” at the imposing tables or “stones” down the centre of the room, on which the “formes” of type were being corrected and got “ready for press.” A second case-room, with about twenty men, was on another, higher flat; adjoining this, in course of time, was the stereo foundry.

Beyond the long case-room, on a slightly different level, was a fairly large room, partitioned off like so many sentry-boxes, occupied by that much-maligned but indispensable class, the printer’s Readers, each with his attendant satellite or “devil.”

The Reader’s duty is not only to see that the punctuation and the spelling are correct, but also to make a note of interrogation against any passage which appears doubtful or incomplete. Some authors profit by these unobtrusive queries; others resent them and snub the Reader.[45] Though not exactly perfect, he bestows much time and patience over his work, and the general correctness of books shows that his labour is not in vain. With all his care and anxiety, however, errors will creep in—it is a moot point whether an absolutely correct book was ever published. It is curious, too, that the most obvious blunders are sometimes passed by a painstaking and careful Reader, as if to show that experienced watchfulness is liable to occasional defeat; for example, there is the case of one Reader who passed for press as accurate a work of reference in which were quotations from many languages, yet overlooked an error on the title-page, though there the types were even larger. Some of the “devils,” or reading-boys, whose duty it was to read the MS. aloud while the Reader marked the errors on the proofs, used to attain by long practice exceptional ability in deciphering the vilest “copy,” and the compositor occasionally availed himself of their aid in a difficulty. But since typewriting has come into general use, illegible copy is comparatively rare.

Further up the stairs, beyond the Readers’ rooms, were other case-rooms, one for the “jobbing” department and another known as “The Garret,” containing about twenty persons, where the case apprentices were trained by experienced men.

While the formes were being prepared for press, the damping-room below was called into operation. It was here that the paper to be printed was damped, in order that it might take on better the impression from the type. This process is now almost abandoned, except in the case of some special make of paper, as printing papers are now made with a texture which does not require damping. In the early days of Paul’s Work, however, it was very necessary.

The formes of type and the paper being ready, the pressmen put the formes on the press-bed, and after “making ready” the pages of type to ensure a uniform impression and colour on the printed sheet, proceeded to work off the formes. In the early days of last century, before the advent of the steam-printing machine, the work of the hand-pressmen must have been a constant strain on their physical powers. A “token” of 250 sheets per hour was the ordinary output; they had to lay the sheet of paper on the tympan and roll it under the press, pull the bar to take the impression, roll back, and lift off the printed sheet—all this for 250 times an hour for ten or twelve hours each day was no light task. In those days also, prior to the invention of the hand-roller, the ink had to be put on the formes of type by means of hand-balls or “dabbers”; and this, too, took a much longer time. The sheets of a book having been thus printed, either by hand-press or by machine, were next sent to the drying-room, and hung over horizontal bars, one above the other, being put up or taken down by means of long peels. When thoroughly dried the sheets were subjected to a smoothing process between highly-glazed boards under great pressure, and were then ready for the bookbinder.

What would a publisher of the present day say to the following? “The printing of ‘Sir Tristrem’ will be finished about the end of June; if you approve, it ought to lie two months before it is hot-pressed, and it could be published about the middle of October.”[46]

The press-room was on the ground-flat, which on the introduction of steam-printing, about 1817, became the machine-room.

In concluding this chapter mention may be made of a kind of democratic court common to every printing-house. This is called the “Chapel,” and its membership comprises all the journeymen. This “Chapel” is said to have originated in the time of William Caxton in one of the chapels at Westminster, and has thus an antiquity coeval with the beginning of printing in Britain. A Chapel meeting may be called at any time, either to preserve the employer’s property, or to settle a dispute regarding prices to be paid for special kinds of work. It is presided over by an experienced workman known as the “Father of the Chapel,” and its meetings are convened by another known as the “Clerk”; and any delinquent found guilty by his peers of a trespass or fault may be subjected to a fine, from which sentence there is no appeal. Should he decline to submit, he may be “sent to Coventry,” a position which he will find very uncomfortable. One Chapel dispute regarding the _Weekly Journal_ has been already referred to, but a previous one in 1803 may be noticed here, as told in a letter of Sir Walter Scott to Miss Seward:—

“On my return, I find an apologetic letter from my printer, saying the third volume will be despatched in a day or two. There has been, it seems, a meeting (? mutiny) among the printers’ devils; also among the paper-makers. I never heard of authors _striking work_, as the mechanics call it, until their masters the booksellers should increase their pay; but if such a combination could take place, the revolt would now be general in all branches of literary labour.”[47]

Various other terms were in use in those early days of Paul’s Work, but of these only two need be noticed here—the “bullet” and the “qui.” Both refer to somewhat similar results—the “qui” being a contraction for _quietus est_, when a workman was suspended for lack of work, implying that he might be reinstated when work became more plentiful; the “bullet,” again, denoted a discharge on the spot, owing to some misconduct or fault, for which he was “shot” out of the office altogether.