| Show TMEWPORW The Machine and What is Claimed For It A REVOLUTION IN PRINTING T ho Big Eastern DallIes That Have Ordered a Supply It Promises to boa bo-a Signal Success It is four hundred and fifty years since ho art of printing from movable typeswas invented by Guttenberg or Kostor or both ince that time type has been set by hand almost exclusively and very few improvements improve-ments save in the styles of type have been made For a hundred years inventors have ried to get a machine to do this The Lc non i d n-on Times is set up on machines made in he Times office There are two other machines ma-chines in limited use in the United States which set up the actual type These do not ffect a large saving as the justification is difficult But the attention of inventors inven-tors has recently been turned toward erfecting machines that should dispense with typo altogether and instead make a solid line of type at one operation The lergenthaler machine does this but owing t o its size and expense it has not come into general use The machine which is now ttracting the attention ef the publishing world is the Rogers typograph invented by P rof Jonn R Rogers of Cleveland 0 a nd manufactured by the Rogers Typo raph company of the same city Machines Ma-chines are now working in the Pulitzer uilding in New york city and have attracted racted publishers from all over the coun try The New York papers gave a full description cription of the machine and its workings DESCRIPTION OF THE MACHINE The typograph is a wide departure from a ill previous attempts at typesetting machines hines iu almost every respect Its size is bur feet by four feet on the ground four feet six inches high and it weighs 450 ounds the floor space taken up by it icing little more than that occupied by an rdinary sewingmachine It can be run by foot hand or machine power and only me eighth horse power is required The peed of the machine is limited only by the capability of the operator On a sixteen em pica line minion machine setting on memorized matter a speed of 7000 ems per hour has been attained but this would be mpossible in actual work The oldest operator op-erator of the company has set from copy a s high as 47CO ems per hour and it is declared de-clared that the average capacity of the ordinary or-dinary operator on a daily newspaper would be from 8000 to 3500 ems per hour The company claims that its machine will i n the hands of a capable operator do the work of about four men and at about one third of the cost THE MATRICES The typograph is simple in construction and the matrices from which the type is cast slide into their places by gravity The finished product of the machine is a solid lino of type ready to be placed in the form to be printed from directly or to be used for stereotyping The lower half of the typograph contains the receptacle for the melted typemetal the cestiugbox and the machinery for trimming the line of type rvbove this and connected with it is the frame upon which the matrices arc hung This frame is like a rounded arch with a space devoted to each matrix in a font of type The matrices are hung on steel wire which run to the cattingbox down an incline of about fortylive degrees The matrices are released as they are wanted and run nlong the wires into places when the key responding to tnem is touched The keyboard controlling them is exactly like that of tho Rein ington typewriter and works in the same way When the matrices have been assembled assem-bled in their place the spacing is done by a rotary wedge which makes the words exactly ex-actly the same distance apart The machinery ma-chinery is started and one revolution of a wheel forcing melted lead into the casting box makes the line of type before it solidifies solidi-fies and sends it between a pair of knives which trim it into proper shape Then the keyboard is raised the matrices slide back to their place by fOrce gravity it is lowered low-ered again and the operation is continued The casting occupies about three seconds during which tho operator is setting up his next line A circular stand on one side of the machine contains matrices which can be put in rapidly by hand so that italics etc may ba used when necessary PRACTICAL USE Eight pages of the New York World of September US and parts of yesterdays issue were set up on typograph but prob bly not a hundered of the readers knew it It will set any size and style of type requiring re-quiring display headings and advertise incuts only to be set by hand About 1400 of these machines have been ordered by newspapers publisned throughout the United States and Canada and orders are coming in every day The New Yorc World announced yesterday that it had ordered one hundred of them and expected to increase in-crease the size of its paper onehalf in COil sequence of the money saved on composition composi-tion Among the many papers that Have ordered the machines are The World Sun limes Mail and Express Post and Commercial Advertiser of New York the Chicago Herald the Prets Times Inquirer Forth Amciican Herald icus ana Bulletin of Philadelphia tho Boston Herald and the Globe the Cincinnati Commacial Gazette the St Eouis PottDispatch and the Republic Cleveland Plaindcaler and ttie Press the Detroit News Tribune Times and Sun the Pittsburgh ChioniclcTclcoraph Albany Press and many others Of the typograph the IVJrld says The advantages which this macnine will l work to publishers to compositors and to the public at large are almost incalculable The publisher can give his paper a new drCiis each day It is cheaper to have extra i sets of matrices than to carry extra fonts I of type It is possible to obtain any unexpected unex-pected million ems of composition without having to wait for type and to lock up any quantity without losing interest on expensive expen-sive type and with ability to put the whole affair in the melting pot when desired de-sired thus closing the interest account for the type metal There is no book composition so large that the of these user machines cannot accept ac-cept it Publishers of directories may keep the matter standing any length of time at but nominal cost and alter anyone address line in it any time Mailing lists regular or temporary of any desired length may be kept standing as long as desired with but trifling outlay DAILIES iy ALL SMALL TOWNS Thousands of small towns which hav I been able to support even a weekly newspaper 1 news-paper can now boldly enter upon the sup port of a daily without risk to the publishers pub-lishers This feature alone will cause an increase in the amount of composition done tar in excess of the increased amount over what every compositor can do by hand thus paying employment will be found for every one capsule of running the machine Compositors and proof readers will also find the machine work beneficial j to their eyesight particularly wnere th Jl I type face is small and in German offices i Toe public will prolitby the ability to have more local papers to make the present local lo-cal press local in fact as well as in name and by being able to print more locals and by the mere fact of every paper using the machine haying a new dress everyday the good accruing to the public eyesight will be no small one ADVANTAGES TO PIUNTERS The advantages to the printers are obvious obvi-ous There will bo no distributing required re-quired and in consequence hours will Do shortened and the labor greatly lessened The work will be cleaner in fact the compositor com-positor can wear a dress suit and kid gloves without injuring them while operating the machine There will be need for moro machines ma-chines than there are compositors at present I pres-ent for as in everything else where tho bt1 isfitin 11ijhotfthethitp t lisjnbmi cl1 l Fourpage papers will BeTnlade inttf r elfcht pages and the Sunday papers will become be-come magazines Already thousands of inquiries have been sent to the Rogers t ypograph company from persons intend i in K to start newspapers where none now xist Many lawyers hnftbffsiuless i men have orb them for use in their houses where or-b circulars and statements will be setup set-up instead of written by hand or on a type riter as at present A prominent New York printer estimates that this new inven ion will in five years open up employment to double the number of compositors now in the country because of the almost endless end-less uses to which the machine can be put here printing is not now thought of The troduction of the machines will not be rapid enough to displace competent compositors p com-positors tno only problem being to get e Enough to run the machines Any intelli gent compositor can learn in a week to set hree times as much as he can by hand and in a month five times as much THE INVENTOR Prof Rogers is a young man of thirty t iree who was born in Illinois but spent most of his earlier days in Kentucky He ga graduated from Oberlin college at eighteen md spent three years as a civil engineer in the northwest after which he becdme uperintendent of the public schools at Lorain Q a city near Cleveland Ho is not a practical printer but had three rothers who were and he used to corn plain to them that they were wasting valu ble time by setting type 05 hand when it ught to be done by machinery His rothers said it was impossible but Prof Rogers who was then but a youth and not even a schoolmaster thought otherwise other-wise and for years pondered over various chemes in his idle moments He was given to insomnia and many waking hour vas spent considering the problem The r result of his labors is this machine He isle rt is-le son of Rev J A R Rogers who removed re-moved from Philadelphia within a few weeks to HartforJ Conn PliiladclpMa In oni |
