But this takes no account of special correspondents subject to instant
call in several hundred places throughout the country; of European
correspondents; of 1,900 news agents throughout the West; of 200 city
carriers; of 42 wholesale city dealers, with their horses and wagons;
of 200 branch advertisement offices throughout the city, all connected
with the main office by telephone; and of more than 3 000 news
boys--all making their living, in whole or in part, from work upon or
business relations with this one paper--a little army of 6,300 men,
women, and children, producing and distributing but one of the 1,626
daily newspapers in the United States.

The leading material forces in newspaper production are type, paper,
and presses.

Printing types are cast from a composition which is made one-half of
lead, one-fourth of tin, and one-fourth of antimony, though these
proportions are slightly reduced, so as to admit what the chemist
calls of copper "a trace," the sum of these parts aiming at a metal
which "shall be hard, yet not brittle; ductile, yet tough; flowing
freely, yet hardening quickly." Body type, that is, those classes ever
seen in ordinary print, aside from display and fancy styles, is in
thirteen classes, the smallest technically called brilliant and the
largest great primer.

In the reading columns of newspapers but four classes are ordinarily
used--agate for the small advertisements; agate, nonpareil, and minion
for news, miscellany, etc., and minion and brevier for editorials--the
minion being used for what are called minor editorials, and the
brevier for leading articles, as to which it may be said that young
editorial writers consider life very real and very earnest until they