NEWSPAPER ‘MIXES’

New Zealand Tablet, 10 October 1912, Page 61

NEWSPAPER ‘MIXES’

The humors of printers’ errors are quite eclipsed by what are technically known as ‘ mixes,’ produced by the accidental running together of different items of news and distinct paragraphs, which should have begun on separate lines. Thus, in one newspaper the descriptions of a street brawl and a church function resulted in this delightful confusion: The crowd then proceeded to indulge in language of a profane and obscene char- , acter. The Very Rev. Dean B. preached on the occasion and the service was fully choraf.’ In another paper we read : ‘ The large cast-iron wheel revolving nine hundred times a minute exploded in that city yesterday after a long and painful illness.’ But quite the richest gem in the cabinet of ‘mixes’ is the jumbled account of the presentation of a goldheaded cane to a Dr. Mudge, and of a patent pigkilling and sausage-making machine, which had been exhibited in his parish. This delicious mixture, which is too long for quotation in full, opens thus: ‘ Several of the Rev. Dr. Mudge’s friends called upon him yesterday, and after a conversation, the unsuspecting pig was seized by the hind leg, and slid along a beam until he reached the hot-water tank. His friends explained the object of their visit, and presented him with a very handsome -headed butcher, who grabbed it by the tail, swung him round, cut his throat from ear to ear, and in less than a minute the carcase was in the water.

Thereupon he came forward and said that there were times when the feelings overpowered one, and for that reason he would not do more than thank those around him for the manner in which such a huge animal was cut into fragments.’ Mixes are the common lot of newspaper makers’ up, but when one comes to consider the conditions under which formes are rushed to press, and late copy is hustled through, the wonder is that ‘ mixes are not a hundred times more frequent.