PRINTING. 



than 4000 or 5000 impressions per hour, they are 

 quite unfitted for printing newspapers having a 

 circulation of 50,000 copies and upwards, the 

 whole of which must be promptly produced by a 

 certain hour every morning. The liberation of 

 newspapers from the obligatory penny stamp in 

 1855, caused so great an increase of circulation, 

 that none of the ordinary processes, including 

 that just referred to, was at all adequate for 

 the work required. Recourse had to be made 

 to an entirely new method of printing, the inven- 

 tion of which is due to Richard M. Hoe of New 

 York. 



Hoe's process consisted in placing the types 

 (for which stereotype plates were afterwards 

 substituted) on a horizontal cylinder revolving 

 on its axis, against which the sheets were pressed 

 by exterior and smaller cylinders. The pages 

 of type were arranged in segments of a circle, 

 each segment forming a frame that could be 

 fixed on the cylinder. These frames were tech- 

 nically called turtles. By the ingenious con- 

 trivance of making the brass rules that separate 

 the columns of a bevelled or wedge shape, the 

 thinner edge being towards the surface of the 



turtle, the form of type was susceptible of being 

 tightened up and made firm. The forms occiT 

 pied only a portion of the main cylinder the 

 remainder affording space for the inking appar- 

 *ar 5 ' Tne smaller surrounding cylinders for 

 effecting the pressure were arranged in a frame- 

 work, m connection with slopes, by which the 

 sheets were fed in blank, and came out printed 

 on one side. The size of the main cylinder 

 the number of exterior cylinders, and the rate 

 of speed determined the number of impres- 

 sions printed per hour. Such was the method 

 of working Hoe's rotary machines, which, as 

 wanted, were made with 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 sub- 

 sidiary cylinders. The first introduced into Eur- 

 ope (with the exception of one made for the Paris 

 newspaper, La Patrie, in 1848) was one with 

 cylinders for printing Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper 

 in London, in 1857. Some idea of the processor 

 working may be obtained from fig. 7, represent- 

 ing a rotary machine with six cylinders. Such a 

 machine with its six feeders, each laying in sheets 

 at the rate of 2000 per hour, could deliver 12,000 

 impressions in the hour ; and those with 8 and 10 

 cylinders, in proportion. 



Fig- 7- 



About the time that the Hoe machines came 

 commonly into use, another great advance was 

 made in the art of rapid printing. In 1859, a long 

 series of experiments ended in the successful sub- 

 stitution of curved stereotype plates for pages of 

 movable type. Besides escaping the risk and 

 wear involved in working pages of type in circular 

 chases, the new method relieves the types from 

 all direct printing-work, so that the fount, instead 

 of two years, may last twenty. 



The Hoe machine, however, with all its advan- 

 tages, retained the inconvenience of printing only 

 one side at a time, and the multiplication of the 

 feeding cylinders introduced too many complica- 

 tions. These difficulties have been entirely over- 

 come by a new machine, the ' Walter/ contrived 

 and perfected between 1863 and 1868 by the man- 

 ager of the Times printing establishment, which 

 prints both sides by one operation from a con- 

 tinuous roll of paper. The ' Walter' machine is 

 represented at the beginning of this sheet. 



j A reel of tightly rolled paper, just as it 

 leaves the mill, is placed at one end of the 

 machine, is damped while passing between small 

 cylinders, and is then led between the first 

 and second of four cylinders, placed one above 

 the other, where it receives its first impression 

 from the stereotype cast of the first cylinder. 

 The paper then returns backward between the 

 second and third cylinders ; and passing forward 

 again between the third and fourth, receives on 

 its other side the second impression from the 

 stereotype plates of the lowest cylinder. The roll 

 is next cut into sheets, and the sheets numbered 

 by an index. Carried up to the top of the 

 machine, the sheets descend perpendicularly, and 

 are thrown alternately backwards and forwards 

 on to boards held by two lads. These, with the 

 striker, who starts the machine, are the sole 

 attendants necessary. The paper travels at the 

 rate of 1000 feet per minute, and the finished 

 sheets are delivered at the rate of ia^xx> copies 



