Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the last Fifty Years: An AutobiographyThompson, Samuel
History
Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the last Fifty Years: An Autobiography
Thompson, Samuel
Frontier and pioneer life -- Ontario; Thompson, Samuel, 1810-1886; Toronto (Ont.) -- Biography; Toronto (Ont.) -- History
Well, I told the lad, whose name was Archie, that I would try him. I was
just then perplexed with the problem of making and using composition
rollers in the cold winter of Canada, and in an old frame office, where
it was almost impossible to keep anything from freezing. So I resolved
to use a composition ball, such as may be seen in the pictures of early
German printing offices, printing four duodecimo pages of book-work at
one impression, and perfecting the sheet--or printing the obverse, as
medallists would say--with other four pages. Archie was tall and
strong--I gave him a regular drilling in the use of the ball, and after
some days' practice, found I could trust him as beater at the press.
Robinson Crusoe's man Friday was not a more willing, faithful,
conscientious slave than was my Archie. Never absent, never grumbling,
never idle; if there was no work ready for him, there was always plenty
of mischief at hand. He was very fond of a tough argument; plodded on
with his press-work; learnt to set type pretty well, before it was
suspected that he even knew the letter boxes; studied hard at grammar
and the dictionary; acquired knowledge with facility, and retained it
tenaciously. He remained with me many years, and ultimately became my
foreman. After the destruction of the establishment by fire in 1849, he
was engaged as foreman of the University printing office of Mr. Henry
Rowsell, and left there after a long term to enter the Toronto School of
Medicine, then presided over by Dr. Rolph, on Richmond Street, just
west of where Knox's Church now stands. After obtaining his license to
practise the profession of medicine, he studied Spanish, and then went
to Mexico, to practise among the semi-savages of that politically and
naturally volcanic republic. There he made a little money.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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