The press-room was on the ground-flat, which on the introduction of steam-printing, about 1817, became the machine-room.
In concluding this chapter mention may be made of a kind of democratic court common to every printing-house. This is called the “Chapel,” and its membership comprises all the journeymen. This “Chapel” is said to have originated in the time of William Caxton in one of the chapels at Westminster, and has thus an antiquity coeval with the beginning of printing in Britain. A Chapel meeting may be called at any time, either to preserve the employer’s property, or to settle a dispute regarding prices to be paid for special kinds of work. It is presided over by an experienced workman known as the “Father of the Chapel,” and its meetings are convened by another known as the “Clerk”; and any delinquent found guilty by his peers of a trespass or fault may be subjected to a fine, from which sentence there is no appeal. Should he decline to submit, he may be “sent to Coventry,” a position which he will find very uncomfortable. One Chapel dispute regarding the Weekly Journal has been already referred to, but a previous one in 1803 may be noticed here, as told in a letter of Sir Walter Scott to Miss Seward:—
“On my return, I find an apologetic letter from my printer, saying the third volume will be despatched in a day or two. There has been, it seems, a meeting (? mutiny) among the printers’ devils; also among the paper-makers. I never heard of authors striking work, as the mechanics call it, until their masters the booksellers should increase their pay; but if such a combination could take place, the revolt would now be general in all branches of literary labour.”[47]
Various other terms were in use in those early days of Paul’s Work, but of these only two need be noticed here—the “bullet” and the “qui.” Both refer to somewhat similar results—the “qui” being a contraction for quietus est, when a workman was suspended for lack of work, implying that he might be reinstated when work became more plentiful; the “bullet,” again, denoted a discharge on the spot, owing to some misconduct or fault, for which he was “shot” out of the office altogether.
CHAPTER XII
END OF OLD PAUL’S WORK
James Ballantyne was not in good health for some years before his death in 1833. During that time, as we have seen, he was assisted by his brother Alexander and by John Hughes, son of the Mr. Hughes who came from Kelso to Paul’s Work. John Hughes, beginning as a compositor, was afterwards taken into the counting-room to aid in the control of the business, and in this position he continued till the death of James Ballantyne. When the trustees opened Ballantyne’s will, they found a letter instructing them to continue John Hughes in that position till the testator’s son, John Alexander Ballantyne, came of age, and if the business were conducted to their satisfaction, John Hughes was then to receive a substantial interest in the firm.
For a number of years the firm of Ballantyne & Hughes was fairly successful. About the year 1850, however, it got into trouble, the causes for which were not far to seek. For one thing, a centralising movement had been going on for some time. Many literary men were finding it necessary to live in London for library and other consulting facilities, and the work naturally followed with the editors and the contributors. The Edinburgh Review, for example, which had been printed for a number of years at Paul’s Work, was removed to London, for the convenience of the editor.
Other causes also were at work. The population of Edinburgh and Leith about the time of Scott’s birth in 1771 was probably not more than 70,000; at his death in 1832 it was reckoned at about 140,000. Thus during his lifetime the number of inhabitants was doubled, and these had to find room elsewhere than in the crowded streets and wynds of old Edinburgh. The New Town across the valley was rapidly growing down the slopes of the northern hills of the city, and many of the wealthier inhabitants and of the old legal firms had already crossed, and other large businesses were following. This led to the withdrawal of much work and traffic from the old town; whilst, again, the starting of the Blackwoods as printers of their own books, which began with the January number of Maga in 1847, took away from Paul’s Work not only that publication but also the Journal of Agriculture, the various editions of Alison’s “History of Europe”—which kept the old office lively for a long time—and other works. Tait’s Magazine, another Edinburgh periodical of good standing, was also taken away. All these and other similar changes, in the absence of a counter-current of local supply, were sufficient to weaken any business.