The Press.
London, England, 1853-08-27 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

HER MAJESTY'S VISIT TO IRELANt►.—TI►e Queen
is expected to reach the station at Holyhead at seven •
o'clock this evening, anti will immediately proceed on
to the royal steam-yacht Victoria and Albert. The
inhabitants of Holyhead have made ample prepara-
tions to receive her Majesty in a manner which will
not fail to convince her of the proverbial loyalty of
her subjects in the principality. immediately on her
arrival she will be met by the committee ; anti her
Majesty has signified her intention of receiving the
address of the inhabitants through the principal
Secretary of State by whom she will be accompanied;
anti it is stated that she has also given her sanction
to change the nameof the harbour, which is in future
to be known as the Royal Victoria Harbour.
DUNt; OMAN ELECTION has terminated in the return
of Mr. John Francis Maguire. The numbers at the
close of the poll on Thursday evening were—Ma-
guire, 171 ; tiregory, 77 : majority, 94.
Lein AND LADY PALMERsTON being on a visit to
their estates at Melbourne, Derbyshire, the noble
lord has consented to lay the foundation-stone of the
new Athena•um at that place this day (Saturday).
In addition to the Atheneum, the building will *Word
accommodation for a savings batik, mechanics insti-
tution, and a national school. liis lordship has been
invite► by the mayor and COTIIOIIII4III to a public
banquet in Derby, but declined the invitation on the •
ground that his visit to Derby was of a strictly non-
political character, and his lordship's reply has caused
much regret in the town of Derby and the neigh.
bourhood.
THE GALE of Thursday night and yesterday visited
Bristol and its neighbourhood with an intensity
amounting almost to a hurricane. Large trees were
rooted up or snapped off; and immense damage,
whose actual extent there has yet been no time to
estimate, was done by the fury of the storm through-
out the surrounding district. Many disasters are
apprehended to have occurred among the shipping
in the Bristol Channel.
We understand that the Admiralty have determined
to discontinue the employment of lieutenants of the
lioJal navy as Admiralty agents, in the North Ameri-
can mail contract steam-packets.—Morming Herald.

THE PATENT PRINTING MACHINERY AND
PRINTING COMPANY.
MANY ingenious inventions fail in practice through
their over-ingenuity of contrivance. Such is the fault
—and such we fear will be the fate—of the new ma-
chinery and processes devised by Major Beniowski.
The invention is indeed ushered into the world with
ample pomp. It is announced as inaugurating a
complete revolution in the craft of bookmaking and
the spread of literature in all its branches. It is
protected by numerous patents. It is recommended
to the world in a well-written prospectus. It is to
be worked by a company, under all the advantages
that capital, organisation, and an influential board
of directors can contribute. Anti on Saturday last its
practical efficiencies were shown off to a numerous
and select company by some very pretty models and
some equally pretty experimental trials, which went
off—as such preliminary exhibitions almost invariably
do—with complete success.
Our limited space, and the difficulty of rendering
a description of complicated machinery intelligible
without diagrams, will oblige us to confine our re-
marks to the principal feature presented in Major
Beniowski's invention. This relates to the change
he has designed in the types and type frames. Or-
dinarily, as our readers probably know, every letter,
point, and symbol, blank spaces inclusive, impressed
upon the printed sheet, is represented by a separate
bit of metal, or type, each of which occupies its own
compartment in the printer's "case," and must be
picked up and put together by a distinct movement,
of his arm and fingers. Practically, the number of
these separate types is limited by the area over which
the compartments that contain them would extend.
It is obvious that, if the "cases" are too large
to be commanded by an arm of average range with-
out compelling the compositor to move from his
seat, time and lalsmr are wasted without any adequate
compensation. The experience of generations has
taught US that the various species of single types,
with their necessary diversifications of capital, italic,
and other letters, occupy quite as much room as can
be admitted under ordinary circumstances. Any
fanciful contrivances, therefore—which have been
often enough suggested— proposing the introduction
of ready-prepared combinations of letters and sylla-
bles, however excellent in theory, have been dis-
carded in practice, simply for the reason that they
would necessitate the use of a larger " ease," and
thus create, more trouble and waste more time than
they could possibly save.
Our present inventor proposes to obviate this
difficulty—to secure the advantages without incur-
ring the drawbacks of such complications—by
changing the form of the type frame. Instead of the
inclined tray, with quadrangular compartments con-

taming the types, he builds up a semicircular wall
pierced with numerous epout-holes, all eommunicating
with type reservoirs behind, but so contrived that
every aperture shall emit a constant now of types,
each in its proper position, to be transferred to the
composing-stick, and each replaced by a successor
when removed by the pincers with which the compo-
sitor is armed, just as the eecoud soldier of a file
steps into the front when his predecessor is shot
down. The surface of the "case" is thus made per-
pendicular ; the are a occupied by each eompartment
is
very considerably diminished; and, as a necessary con-
sequence, the number of such compartments that can
be used, without exacting any additional muscular
action Proust to compositor, increased and even mul-
tiplied in a noticeable degree. •Witli this larger
range of compartments at his command, Maier
Bertiowski proposes to introduce what he terms logo-
types, eompound syllables, terminals, or some-
times whole words of most frequent occurrence,
which can be placed bodily into the " compasiag-
stick," mei thus effect at one " lift" what is now dune
by several. !lore is, no doubt, an obvious saving, of
muscular action and of time to the compositor. Five
thousand letters could be—and were, in the expeii-
ments tried on Saturday—put together in one hour,
while the average of a fairly •skilful timid, with the
ordinary 'initiatives, is twelve or fifteen hundred.
This is the " revolution in printing " promised by the
inventor. Types are set up in a third or quarter of
the time, and consequently at a third of the expense
formerly required for printing.
But against this saving of minutes and money we
must reckon the offset of accidents, which, as pritc-
field invehanicians well know, can lie reduced le MI
ascertainable, and sometimes high, average in the
working of an elaborate machine. We must count
up the chances of failure in the fulfilment of inure
than one minute anti delicate condition ; the time
lost through errors and derangements, the possibi-
lity of the types so cleverly arranged not presenting
in the expected position, or at the fitting moment—
above all, the physical attributes of memory and
skill
demanded from the compositor, who is required, in
order to make the invention answer, to pick out, at
the rate of eighty per minute, the particular type
from nearly two thousand varieties, to place it in its
proper order, and follow it with its proper successor.
If these casualties, whose absolute value prolonged
experience only can disclose, are sufficient to coun-
tervail the gain accruing from the economy of labour
produced by the use of the logotypes and the di-
minished area of the " eases," then is the whole mar-
gin of profit derivable from the invention utterly ob-
literated. For our own part, we believe that such
must be the result in practice. The prepared expe-
riments of a " private view " go for nothing. The
invention must stand the rough-and-ready test of
actual work. It' it be too complicated, too liable to
failure and displacement for such ordinary require-
ments, it must heroine a mere toy for the amusement
of a curious public, or for occasional use by an

amateur.
We wish to give Major Ileniowski all credit for the
ingenuity lie has displayed, even while expressing
our conviction that it is in some degree misapplied.
There are some minor details in which we believe
him to have been more successful than in his logo.
types, or the elaborate case in which ho packs them,
and which he denominates the authoriton. His new
inking-roller, for example, consisting of a hollow c'
finder of vulcanised caoutclione inflated with air to
any required degree of hardness, and yet preserving
perfect elasticity in all temperatures, is a capital im-
provement upon the old " composition" rollers. If
Major Ihmiowski can but succeed in overcoming cer-
tain trade prejudices and ihteresty with regard to this
simple implement, be will have earned the gratitude
of all printers luta of all who supply printers with
the raw material. After all, this may be better, both
for himself stud the world, than even if he waive to
succeed in effecting the promised " revolution" in
literature.

The plough. as an agricultural machine, is condemned
to tqweily extinetion, except for rare tiocontiotot, by Mr.
Divehi. In it recent letter that getitlettisui has published
his derision, founded on rigid invelotigatiton and entripulti-
tine, that the ,loon of the plough, as an instrument of
culture, is sealed, and that the rotatory forking, or, as it is
wrongly culled, 'Jigging illowhine, is the only prolituble
eultivntoor. Even with six or eight horses it is I'llearer
and infinitely more ell.ective than the plough
' - sinee the trial of implements at my • gathering,'" he adds,
" I ha.. ri•eeiveil from one Of our North American colonies the
male' of a newly-invented machine, which, by a happy and moist
simple combine' io on of horse and steam power, will not only
deeply, cheaply, and etheiently cultivate and pulverise the soil,
but at the 141 • IMP.. sow the seed and leave all in a finished
eotailiti.os. It sill also, by a simple inversion, rut and gather the
corn without any rake or 411110 r complication; while, both in cul-
tivation awl harvesting, its operation will Ile continuous and
without stoppage. Whet' complete, it will weigh Rigout twenty
too twenty-live cwt., will require a pair of horses, and will repre-
sent the power of shoot eight to twelve, Or more, real horses.
'floe implonowoot for digging will require one man and U 1111.• hey
only, incluoling the managemeut of the steani-eugiae ; la reaping.
the !Millie, with the 0.411111.11.11 of three men to bind as the corn
falls tutu their anus. The men will be carried oa the assehlue."

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