i88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Rent of machines $1,500 



Three operators at $14 2,184 



I'oremen, etc 1,C64 



Gas for machines, say 500 



Rent, heat, light, etc 500 



Total $6,348 



The saving would apparently be some $85G, or over twelve per 

 cent, while less room would be required, cleaner and better work 

 would be done, the labor better paid, and a higher class of opera- 

 tors employed. Later I will touch on some reasons why it might 

 not be safe to depend on type-casting machines in so small a busi- 

 ness. In a larger business there is little doubt in my mind that 

 the use of the machines is preferable to hand composition. 



Finally, it is much easier to learn to operate the type-casting 

 machine than to learn to set type. To set type at the rate of a 

 thousand ems an hour requires two or three years of constant 

 practice. To set a thousand ems on the type-casting machine in 

 an hour requires no previous practice. It can be done the first 

 time a person touches a key-board. This seems a strong state- 

 ment to make, but I have the best of reasons for knowing it to be 

 true. I did it, as already described. Previous to making the at- 

 tempt I had never touched a key-board but once, and that was a 

 dummy-board. I had never touched a type- writer or any other 

 instrument the use of which might qualify one for operating the 

 type-casting machine. Being in the rooms of the Linotype Com- 

 pany in New York recently, I asked and received permission to 

 try the machine; and picking up a printed clii^ping from which 

 the operator had been setting, I went to work and in six minutes 

 set one hundred and fourteen ems, equal to one thousand one 

 hundred and forty ems per hour, stopping because the clipping 

 then ended. I repeated similar experiments on other machines 

 subsequently, with much the same average result. In short, I 

 was able to do with the machine at sight and without practice 

 what it would take me years to learn to do by hand. As to be- 

 coming expert on the machines, a number of operators whom I 

 have questioned agree that from three to six months' practice 

 enables one to attain a speed of three thousand to four thousand 

 ems from ordinary copy. 



In fact, as I have stated, the only limit of speed on the Lino- 

 type is the rate at which the operator can move his fingers. He 

 can not work quite so rapidly as a type-writer, because at the end 

 of each line of matrices he must stop to touch the lever which 

 sends the line off to receive a cast. Supposing we allow twenty- 

 five per cent of his time for this, which is surely a large proj)or- 

 tion, we can get an idea of the possible practical rate of the ma- 

 chine by comparing it with the possibilities of a type-writer. 



