i86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Type-setting by Machinery.— Type-casting is quite different 

 from machine type-setting. Before contrasting type-casting with 

 ordinary hand type-setting, it may clear the way to outline the 

 principle of machine type-setting. 



The type-setting machine has a reservoir of type, instead of a 

 magazine of matrices as in the casting-machine ; but, unlike the 

 matrices, which return to their magazine the moment a line is cast 

 from them, the type must go the whole way to the printing-press. 

 Otherwise, the action of the type-setting machine is somewhat 

 similar to that of the casting-machine. The type-setting machine 

 is also worked by an operator at a key-board. When the operator 

 touches a key, a type is released, just as a matrix is in the casting- 

 machine, and slides into a receiver, where it is joined by other 

 successive letters until words and lines are formed. As type is 

 directly used, there is no furnace or melting-pot about the ma- 

 chine. This is the only advantage it has over the casting-machine, 

 while compared with the latter it has serious drawbacks. 



The type-setting machine seems to be a practical success, and 

 an improvement on type-setting by hand ; but, if for two reasons 

 only, it is doomed to be superseded by the casting-machine. 1. It 

 requires a heavy stock of type instead of a few matrices. 3. At 

 least two attendants are required to each machine, one to operate 

 the key-board, the other to justify the lines, attend to corrections 

 and superintend matters generally, and to distribute the type 

 again. Still, the business manager of the office in which the New 

 York Forum is printed, informed me that through their use he is 

 saving $1,700 a year in the setting of that monthly magazine, 

 which does not require in a year as much composition as a daily 

 paper in a month. 



Comparison with Type-setting by Hand.— In any consider- 

 able quantity of straight reading matter, type-casting machines 

 as compared with hand composition should, if working success- 

 fully, effect a saving of from one fourth to one third the cost of 

 setting. Moreover, the setting is better. Perhaps this conten- 

 tion is best illustrated by figures. Those which I propose to 

 give are based on the conditions prevailing in Canadian news- 

 paper offices. Let us suppose an office in which one hundred and 

 twenty thousand ems of straight reading matter are set per day 

 in minion type. To fix ideas, we may describe this roughly as 

 equal to about twenty-five ordinary newspaper columns. Many 

 of the larger city papers in Canada print just about this quantity 

 of reading matter per day. The union rate paid compositors in 

 Canada is thirty-three and a third cents per one thousand ems. 

 One hundred and twenty thousand ems would cost, therefore, about 

 $40 for composition, apart from the cost of the type, foremen, office, 

 etc. Forty dollars per day would come to $12,000 per year of three 



