THE TIMES NEWSPAPER.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume III, Issue 211, 17 February 1882, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE TIMES NEWSPAPER.

From an article by Mr Joseph Hatton in " Harper's Magazine" we take the following interesting particulars relative to the "Jupiter " of the Press: —

The Times has often been called the Jupiter of the Press. Aa emblematic of its power, the title is well chosen. Among all the newspapers of the world, none has wielded so wide and extensive an influence as this great English paper. If buildings have a physiognomical character of their own, those of the Times are peculiarly representative. Face to face with the Times office, you confront a sturdy, immovable institution. Enter and make a tour of the premises, and you are impressed with an air of order and repose that pervades every department. There is no hurry in the Times Office. Even when the last "formes" go down to press, they go in a calm, systematic fashion. No rushing, no calling, no noisy hammering accompanies the operation. Now and then something nearly approaching a fuss attends the insertion of the weather chart or a war map into the latest pages, put this is of rare occurrence. It is as if the entire establishment, with its employes, belonged to a machine manipulated by unseen hands. Another source of surprise is that there appear to be but few people in the place. You might reasonably expect to meet an army of compositors, stereotypers, machinists, clerks, reporters, messengers; you ouly see a few persons going about their with a quiet unobtrusiveness, though the Times does employ quite an army of men. They are disciplned, however, as carefully as an army should be, and they go about as if they were always conscious of the responsibility of serving "The Thunderer." Just as the artists and "supers." at the Lyceum Theatre seem to move as if under the constant eye of the presiding genius of the theatre, so the persons employed in the Times Office always appear to feel that they are in an exceptional and distinguished service. This sense of order and regularity in Printinghouse Square is not disturbed, even though the proprietors invariably occupy the van of mechanical progress in regard to the production of a newspaper. The first to use machine presses, the first to drive them by steam, the first to introduce type-setters, the first to adopt the telephone and the electric light, there is no proposed change or improvement in connection with their business that seeming to them worthy of consideration, the propietors of the Times have not tested, and adopted when experience has approved the chance. Mr. John C. Macdonald, a capable gentleman, with the natural shrewdness and perseverance of his nationality, has for many years been the practical manager of the paper. Most of the changes and improvements have been carried out under his supervision ; many of them have been inaugurated by him. With his permission, little as this is to say, we may not have said it, for it is hard to tell which predominates in Mr. Macdonald's character, the wisdom of practical experience ortheunostentation of native modesty. The ordinary public that reads its morning newspaper over breakfast has very vague idea of tremendous organisation of men and means and machinery necessary to the daily journal's production. Apart from the correspondents, the telegraphists, the steamers, the railway trains, that are engaged in its service abroad, there are at home the editors, leader-writers, critics, reviewers, reporters, messengers, a multitude of persons, men of the highest culture and learning, down to the nimblest of chroniclers, telegraph clerks, and messengers. These formidable as is their power, simply supply the pabulum, the manuscript, the material for manufacture. How great and how little all this is an outsider can hardly appreciate until he has seen a leading newspaper establishment at work. The Times Office is a vast machine shop and factory. Everything in the place, except the paper, is made on the spot. The Walter machines were made here, as were also those which print the Daily News, the Scotsman, the Liverpool Post, the New York Times, and other papers. Indeed, the whole of the appliances in the printing of the paper and the lighting of the rooms (even the electric lamps) are manufactured on the premises, which embrace machine shops, type, sterotype, and electrotype foundries, electricians' laboratories, &c. The whole of the new buildings were designed and built by Mr. Walter and Mr. Macdonald, without the aid of architect or contractor. The very bricks were on Mr. Walter's estate at Briarwood, and brought to London by his own people. The intervention of third parties, such as contractors outside the control of Mr. Macdonald, would have made the reconstruction of an establishment like the Times during its business hours almost an impossibility. The top floor of the building is devoted to the bound files of the paper. Descending to the next, you come to the dining-

rooms and kitchens — one department for the clerks, another for the compositors and workmen generally. The service is conducted on canteen principles, and as a rule, all the employees are glad to have the opportunity of taking their meals here. The kitchens are fitted up with every modern appliance. The meats are not baked, all kinds of joints together in one oven, as is the case in most English lestaurants, to the utter destruction of their individual character and flavor ; they are roasted before open fires. I noticed that there is a complete staff of cooks, with a chef, who appears to take a special pride in his art. On this floor there are also storerooms and other apartments. As you descend you come next to broad and high composing rooms, lighted with electric-lamps. Cloak-rooms are provided for the men, each article of clothing being checked by an attendant, after the manner of New York club-houses. Here and there are quiet offices, with telephonic and other machines in use and on trial. One room is devoted to the special Paris wire. By the side of the telegraph, which reels off its messages on the now quite familiar roll of paper, is a type-setter, so that the Paris letter is put into type, hot as it comes in, from the slips themselves. In another apartment are telephones connected with the reporters' rooms at the House of Parliament. During last session all the night reports were sent to the office through this medium. The stenographer, writes out his notes as heretofore, then the manuscript is read off through the telephone. The recipients of the messages at the Times Office dictate them to the type-setters, and so they are put into type. The manuscript comes up from the Houses as heretofore, and goes into the reading room, so that the proofs are read by the original copy, thus checking the telephonic dictation. The type-set-ting machine is made in the Times Office, and is as near prefection as it is likely to be in our time. In a corner of one of the great composing rooms there are six or seven of these little machines. They are capable of " composing" three parts of the news portion of the paper, each putting up five or six columns a night. The editorial and writing rooms occupy the next storey below, and convenient to the chief's desk is a telegraph in direct communication with Mr. Reuter's office.

A pneumatic tube is used right through the premises for the distribution of " copy," proofs, and messages. On the ground-floor are the machines, engines (the latter in pairs in case of accidents), foundries, publishingoffices ; so that the last operation of production, the printing of the formes, is conducted with the added facilities of approximation of departments. The formes come down ; they are stereotyped ; they pass to the machine ; the paper is printed, and goes forth into the publishing-office, which opens its doors at about 4 each morning to the carters and porters of Smith and Son, who are the chief distributors of the leading journals. In front of these busy rooms, cut off from the heat of the machinery, and having an outlet upon Queen Victoria-street, are the advertising offices and the letter and inquiry department. From the aspect of a manufactory and governmental bureau in one, the establishment now assumes the appearance of a bank. The similarity is not without point, for here come in the " sinews of war." In this department there is a telephone in communication with the Eoyal Exchange, which can be switched off to the offices of all the leading advertising agents in the city.

The inquiry department is for the use of pevsone who choose to have their letters addressed to the Times Office, for consulting the files, and other purposes — a convenience which the public evidently appreciates. The Times, with all its ramifications and influences, rinchip** from Printinghouse Square to the uttermost ends of the earth, constitutes one of the modern wonders of the world ; and nothing about it is more remarkable than the fact that it may be said to have grown up in our day. The art of printing has been literally revolutionised by the preseut Mr. Walter and Mr. Macdonald.