190 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



parts, and if tliey get out of order in a town in which expert 

 mechanics are not at once available, their usefulness is gone 

 for that day at least. 5. They can set only straight reading mat- 

 ter, so that advertisements, display headings, cross lines, italics, 

 etc., must be set by compositors. 6. If a mistake of a letter is 

 made in setting by the machine, the whole line must be recast, 

 unless (which is not likely) the mistake is noticed the moment it 

 is made and the operator stops to rectify it by changing the 

 matrix. However, a whole line can be reset and recast almost 

 as quickly as a compositor can correct by hand a mistake in a 

 type letter. 7. It is a more serious drawback that if, in correct- 

 ing proofs, it is desired to insert additional words, a number of 

 lines may have to be recast. 8. The matrices in which the casts 

 are made are possibly liable to wear a little, and so to soon make 

 bad casts. Of course this can be remedied by getting new 

 matrices, which are not expensive. 9. In a small office where 

 two or three machines might be employed, there would probably 

 be only two or three expert operators ; if one took ill, the machine 

 would become almost useless for the time being. 



Present Practical Availability. — A small printing-office 

 is hampered in many ways with regard to the use of machines, 

 nor can it safely, at present, take the chances of break- downs. 

 Where only three or four machines can be used, the stoppage of 

 one means a loss of twenty thousand ems of setting per day. 

 That is serious enough; but if the cause of stoppage should affect 

 all the machines, there must be a business dead-lock, because 

 small concerns, or rather concerns in the smaller centers of popu- 

 lation, can not at slight notice secure a staff of compositors to 

 replace the machines, or arrange for publication elsewhere. Even, 

 therefore, were the machines being manufactured as fast as 

 desired, it is questionable whether they would find a market at 

 present outside the large cities where expert mechanics can be 

 had to attend them at a moment's notice, and where arrangements 

 for special help or special publication can be made in an hour, if 

 necessary. But I think that in any office setting one hundred 

 thousand ems a day, or over, it would pay the proprietors to at 

 once procure machines sufficient to do at least half their setting, 

 retaining a certain number of compositors with them. I can see 

 no reason why this should not be a fairly safe experiment and a 

 financial success. 



The machines are available on a very liberal basis. Either 

 company leases them at a moderate rental, agrees to take them 

 back if not satisfactory, to keep them in repair while used, and 

 to replace them with new machines in case of improvement of 

 the patent. 



The typographical unions admit that the machines must be 



