A Word about Proof-Reading.
EVERY column of a newspaper contains from ten to twenty thousand distinct pieces of metal, according to the paper and the type. The displacement of a single one makes an error. Is it any wonder that errors occur? In the large offices, professional proof readers are kept, whose practiced eyes, passing twice over every line of proof, detect most of the errors; a boy is also kept for that purpose, at the same time reading the copy aloud. Still mistakes are frequently occurring after coming from such hands, and probably no book or newspaper was ever published without errors that might be detected by the merest novice. In book printing it is estimated that proof-reading costs half as much as composition. In country offices, the editor is generally foreman, printer, book-keeper, and everything else, and if the same care should be exercised that is deemed indispensable on the best city sheets, the country newspapers could not be published at all, because of the expense.