664 



PRINTING AND NUMBERING CARDS 



Morning Post . . 632,886 

 Morning Advertiser . 684,715 

 Daily News . . . 704,619 



Standard 

 Daily Telegraph 

 The 'Times 



. 708,428 

 . 1,053,200 

 . 2,195,963 



Platen Machine, or the Spottiswoode Press. The first successful application of steam, 

 as a motive power, to printing presses with a platen and vertical pressure was made 

 in the office where this book is being printed. Convinced of the superiority of the 

 impression made by flat as compared with that of cylindrical pressure, Mr. Andrew 

 Spottiswoode, assisted by his chief engineer, Mr. Brown, succeeded, after many experi- 

 ments, in perfecting a machine which combines the excellence of the hand-press with 

 more than four times ics speed, and a uniformity in colour which can never be attained 

 by inking by hand. The main point of the invention is the endless screw or drum 

 which takes the carriage and type under the platen, and, after the impression is taken, 

 returns it to its original position. 



PRINTING AND NUMBERING GARBS. It will be remembered that in 

 the early days of railway travelling, the ticket system then in vogue at the various 

 stations was a positive nuisance ; as every ticket before it was delivered to a passenger 

 had to be stamped and torn out of a book, thus causing the loss of considerable 

 time to travellers when many passengers were congregated. The first to remedy this 

 was Mr. Edmondson, who constructed an ingenious" apparatus for printing the tickets 

 with consecutive numbers, and also dating the same. This gave great facilities for 

 checking the accounts of the station clerks ; but owing to the imperfect manner of 

 inking, consequent on the construction of the apparatus, the friction to which the 

 tickets were exposed, before they were delivered up, in a great manner obliterated the 

 printing, and occasionally rendered them quite illegible. By Messrs. Church and 

 Goddard's machine for printing, numbering, cutting, counting, and packing railway 

 tickets, this difficulty is removed, and great speed is attained in manufacturing the 

 tickets, as the several operations are simultaneously performed. Pasteboard cut into 

 strips by means of rollers is fed into the machine, by being laid in a trough, and 

 brought under the prongs of a fork (working with an intermittent movement), which 

 pushes the strips successively forward between the first' pair of a series of guide or 

 carrying rollers. There are four pairs of rollers* placed so as to conduct the strip 

 'through the machine in a horizontal line ; and an intermittent movement is given 

 them for the purpose of carrying the strips forward a short distance at intervals. 

 The standards of the machine carry, at the top, a block termed ' the platen,' as it 

 acts the part of the press-head in the common printing machine, portions of it 

 'projecting downwards between the upper rollers of the first and second, and second 

 and third pairs of carrying rollers, nearly to the horizontal plane, in which the paste- 

 board lies, so as to sustain it at those points while it receives the pressure of the 

 printing types and numbering discs, hereafter referred to. The types to designate the 

 nature of the ticket, as ' Birmingham, First Class,' are secured in a ' chase,' upon a 

 metal plate or table, which also carries the numbering discs for imprinting the figures 

 upon the cards ; and the table by a cam action is alternately raised, to bring the types 

 and numbering discs in contact with the pasteboard, and then lowered into a suitable 

 position, to admit of an inking-roller moving over the types and numbering discs, and 

 applying ink thereto. The table likewise carries at one end a knife, which acts in 

 conjunction with a knife-edge, projecting downwards from the fixed head of the 

 machine, and thereby gives the cross-cut to the strips between the third and fourth 

 pairs of carrying rollers, thus severing each into a given number of tickets. The 

 strip of pasteboard which is fed into the machine stops on arriving at the second pair 

 of carrying rollers ; and, on the ascent of the printing-table, the types print on that 

 portion which is between the first and second pairs of rollers. The strip then passes 

 on to the third pair of rollers, where it stops ; and, on the table again ascending, the 

 numbering discs imprint the proper number upon the pasteboard between the second 

 and third pairs ; the type, in the meanwhile, printing what is to be the next following 

 ticket. On the next ascent of the table, the strip has advanced to the fourth pair of 

 rollers ; and the knives being now brought into contact, the printed and numbered 

 portion of the strip is severed. The now completed ticket is lastly delivered by the 

 fourth pair of rollers into a hollow guide piece, and conducted to a box below, provided 

 with a piston, which, to facilitate the packing of the tickets in the box, can be adjusted 

 to any height to receive the tickets as they fall. To avoid the necessity of having to 

 count the tickets after they are taken from the receiving box, a counting apparatus, 

 connected with the working parts of the machine, is made to strike a bell on the 

 completion of every hundred or more tickets, so as to warn the attendant to remove 

 them from the box. The inking apparatus is assimilated in character to self-acting 

 inkers in ordinary printing presses ; and the numbering discs are worked in a manner 

 very similar to those for paging books. 



