XVIII
ERRORS OF THE PRESS
RRORS of the press is a convenient phrase, for it carries with it a vague notion that there is in the methods or machinery of printing a perverse tendency to the making of mistakes which are due more to the process than to the man. What is meant by the press is not clear: it seems to be a factor apart from the man, for it is seldom any helper of the press confesses that "the mistake is mine." The impression is produced that the complex organization known as the press, which may need a dozen intelligent helpers between the author and the bookbinder, and many unintelligent contributors from the types to the printing-machines, has acquired some measure of independent activity through combination, permitting it to wander away in a forbidden path which
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