Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 | Page 3

divisions:
First.--The personal and material forces which make the newspaper.
Second.--The sources of revenue from the joint working of these
forces.
Third.--The direct office, bearing and influence of these forces.
It is but natural that the general public has limited idea of the
personality and mechanism of the publication business, for much of its
movement is at night, and there is separation and isolation of
departments, as well as complicated relation of the several parts to the
whole. Not many years ago a very few men and boys could edit, print
and distribute the most important of newspapers, where now hundreds
are necessary parts in a tremendous complexity. But even to-day, of the
nearly 18,000 publications in the United States, more than 11,000 are
of that class which, in all their departments, are operated by from two
to four or five persons, and which furnish scant remuneration even for
these. Among the thin populations and in the remote regions are
thousands of weekly papers--and you may spell the weekly either with
a double e or an _ea_--where there are two men and a boy, one of
whom does a little writing and much scissoring, loafing among the
corner groceries and worse, begging for subscribers, button-holing for
advertisements, and occasionally and indiscriminatingly thrashing or
being thrashed by the "esteemed contemporary" or the "outraged
citizen;" the second of whom sets the type, reads the proofs, corrects

them more or less, makes the rollers, works the old hand press, and
curses the editor and the boy impartially; and the third of whom sweeps
the office weekly, bi-weekly or monthly, inks the forms and sometimes
pis them, carries the papers, and does generally the humble and
diversified works of the "printer's devil," while between the three the
whole thing periodically goes to the ---- level pretty sure to be reached
now and then by papers of this class. Yet there are many of these
country papers that Mr. Watterson once styled the "Rural Roosters"
which are useful and honored, and which actively employ as editors
and publishers men of fair culture and good common sense, with
typographical and mechanical assistants who are worthy of their craft.
But the personal workers upon the great magazines and the daily
newspapers are for each a battalion or a regiment, and in the aggregate
a vast army. The Century Magazine regularly employs in its editorial
department three editors and eight editorial assistants, of whom five are
women; in the art department two artists in charge and four assistants,
of whom three are women; in the business department fifty-eight
persons, men and women--a total of seventy six persons employed on
the magazine regularly and wholly, while the printers and binders
engaged in preparing a monthly edition of 200,000 magazines are at
least a duplicate of the number engaged in the editorial, art and
business divisions.
The actual working force upon the average large daily newspaper, as
well as an outline idea of the work done in each department, and of its
unified result in the printed sheet, as such newspapers are operated in
New York, Chicago and Boston, may be realized from an exhibit of the
exact current status in the establishment of a well known Chicago
paper.
In its editorial department there are the editor-in-chief, managing
editors, city editors, telegraph editors, exchange editors, editorial
writers, special writers and about thirty reporters--56 in all. Working in
direct connection with this department, and as part of it, are three
telegraph operators and nine artists, etchers, photographers and
engravers; in the Washington office three staff correspondents, and in
the Milwaukee office one such correspondent--making for what Mr.
Bennett calls the intellectual end a force of 72 men, who are usually
regarded by the business end as a necessary evil, to be fed and clothed,

but on the whole as hardly worth the counting.
In the business and mechanical departments the men and women and
their work are these:
The business office, for general clerical work, receiving and caring for
advertisements, receiving and disbursing cash, and for the general
bookkeeping, employs 24 men and women.
On the city circulation, stimulating and managing it within the city and
the immediate vicinity, 10 persons.
On the country circulation, for handling all out-of-town subscriptions
and orders of wholesale news agents, 30 persons.
On mailing and delivery, for sending out by mail and express of the
outside circulation, and for distribution to city agents and newsboys, 31
persons.
In the New York office, caring for the paper's business throughout the
East, the Canadas, Great Britain and Europe, two persons.
In the composing room, where the copy is put into type, and in the
linotype room, where a part of the type-setting is done by machinery,
95 persons.
In the stereotype foundry, where the plates are cast (for the