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

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 type itself never is put on the press), 11 persons.
In the press room, where the printing, folding, cutting, pasting and counting of the papers is done, 30 persons.
In the engine and dynamo room, 8 persons.
In the care of the building, 3 persons.
These numbers include only the minimum and always necessary force, and make an aggregate of 316 persons daily and nightly engaged for their entire working time,