TYPE- CASTING MA CHINES. 



181 



What Type-casting is.— Before describing the type-casting 

 principle, allow me to review briefly the process of type-settmg 



by hand. -.^ t .r -t « 



In this process the operator, technically called a compositor, 

 has before him an oblong frame (or "case") divided mto a num- 

 ber of small open boxes. One box contains the a's, another tii^x 

 b's another the numeral I's, another the numeral 2's, and so on. > 

 In his left hand the compositor holds a little steel receivmg box, 

 called a " stick." With his right hand he picks out from the 

 « case " the letters he requires to form a word, and puts them one 

 by one in his " stick." The stick is the same width as the column 

 of his newspaper. Toward the end of each line in his stick he has 

 to pad out the line with lead slugs so as to exactly fill the width 

 of the stick ; this is called " justifying." When he has a certam 

 quantity of reading matter in his stick, say one tenth of a column 

 in length, he transfers the type to a "galley" or long_ stick. 

 By and by, when the galley is filled up, the type m it is. trans- 

 ferred to the large receiving form called a "chase," m whicn the 

 columns of the newspaper are made up to be placed on the print, 

 ing-press. Such, very roughly described, is the process ot type- 

 setting by hand. ^ • i ^. n 

 After the paper is printed the compositor must pick out all 

 the separate letters and numerals from the columns of type, and 

 put them back in the proper boxes in his "case." This is called 

 " distributing." The " distribution " occupies about one fifth of a 

 compositor's whole working-time. 



In all this, civilization is to-day where it was five hundred 

 years ago, and almost where the Chinese were two thousand 

 years ag^'o. Alone of all the great inventions of man, type-setting 

 has stood still from its birth until now. In war and in com- 

 merce, on our farms and in our workshops, in travel and in our 

 homes, almost every mechanical process, once slowly and labori- 

 ously effected by manual or animal labor, has been quickened 

 generation after generation by new appliances or inventions, save 

 and except the work of type-setting. That is as slow now^ as 

 when Coster or Gutenberg did the first European type-setting 

 early in the fifteenth century. Printing has otherwise moved 

 with the rest of the world. Our printing-presses, our power, our 

 folding and pasting machines, all are wonderfully improved. 

 Nothing in all the world has developed more marvelously than 

 the printing-press. But type-setting has stood still. The ordi- 

 nary composing-room of to-day can work no faster and no better 

 than the composing-room of the fifteenth century. 



With the type-casting machine should come a new era. The 

 operator needs only the intelligence which is required in a good 

 compositor. He does not require more than one tenth the tram- 



