TYPE-CASTING MACHINES. 187 



hundred working-days. Now, let us see what it would cost to do 

 the same amount of setting by the type-casting machines. These 

 are claimed by their proprietors to work at the rate of three thou- 

 sand to five thousand ems per hour in regular use. Making 

 allowance for the probability that operators could not keep up 

 such a speed all day, that mistakes have to be corrected, and ac- 

 cidental stoppages might occur, we may admit that the machines 

 can set an average of twenty-five hundred ems per hour during an 

 eight-hour day, or twenty thousand ems per day each, which is 

 little more than half what the inventors claim as practical. Six 

 machines could at this rate set one hundred and twenty thousand 

 ems per day. As already said, to set this by hand would cost 

 $12,000. The cost of the machine work would be — 



Six machines at $500 rent each |3,000 



Six operators at say $14 per week 4,308 



Gas, say 1,000 



Repairs, etc 500 



Total $8,868 



Or equivalent to a saving of $3,132 on the setting by hand, or 

 over twenty -five per cent. The estimate of $14 per week as 

 a fair rate for operators of the machines is not too low for a 

 Canadian ofiice. First-class compositors certainly do not aver- 

 age more. 



As a further illustration, I may give the actual figures of cost 

 of a composing-room with which I am familiar. The setting 

 amounts to about sixty thousand ems in a nine-hour day, done 

 by ten to twelve comj)ositors. A number of the hands are paid 

 by the week, and the straight setting costs only about twenty-five 

 cents per thousand ; or, for sixty thousand ems, $15 per day — equal 

 for three hundred days to $4,500 per year. There is also a fore- 

 man at $14, an assistant foreman at $12, and a couple of lads at $3 

 each. These four, costing $32 per week, or $1,G64 a year, do all the 

 setting of space advertisements. There is $2,000 worth of type, 

 costing for interest say $140 per year, and requiring renewal at the 

 rate of say $400 per year, or complete renewal once in five years. 

 The cost of the composing-room is therefore somewhat as follows : 



Composition by hand $4,500 



Foremen, etc 1,664 



Cost of type 540 



Rent, heat, light, etc., say 500 



Total $Y,204 



To set sixty thousand ems in a nine-hour day, or six thousand 

 seven hundred ems per hour, would require say three type-cast- 

 ing machines, which at $500 rent would cost $1,500 per year, and. 

 the composing-room figures would be : 



