The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-01 00:00:00

NEWSPAPER PRINTING.

The number of readers of daily newspapers having
increased twenty-fold since 1850, the mechanical genius o°
machinists has been severely taxed to keep pace with such
a rapidly-increasing demand The whole impression of a
daily paper must be printed off in about two, or at the
most three, hours. Stale news is as worthless as stale
fish, and unless the newspaper proprietor complies with
the necessity of supplying his merchandise at the moment
it is wanted, he loses all chance of a sale. The news
agents and the news trains will wait for no man,
and hence rapidity and certainty of production are essen
tial elements in all newspaper machinery. No more active
scene can be witnessed than is presented in the large
newspaper offices every morning from 4to 6 o'clock. As
the visitor approaches the locality he hears a mixed noise
like the roaring of tho sea and the rushing of a railway
train. On coming into the machine room he seems sud-
denly to have entered a little town full of the mcst active,
but measured, and systematic, movement.
Perched up at different parts of high machines, each of
which looks as big as a small ship, are about forty men,
whose eyes are intent upon shifting a sheet of paper at the
exact moment that it can be received by the small teeth
at one of the numerous mouths of the machine.

Nearly half of the labour involved in printing consists
in the attention required to feed those forty sets of teeth,
which are ever active and never satisfied. For the last ten
years efforts have been made by machinists to supersede
the necessity for "feeding," and these efforts are now
crowned with success. The first machine in London that
has fed itself is the "Walter Press," which for months
past has been at work at the office of the Times.
Within the last few days a machine has
been erected at the Daily Telegraph office.
Both of these machines aro working successfully,
and it is now certain that printing machines
which are really self-acting will be available for future
use. The Walter Press is an English invention, the
machine in the Telegraph office is contrived by an Ameri-
can, and after the inventor, who is not now living, is called
the Bullock Press. One of the advantages which this
machine possesses over any former printing apparatus is
the smallness of the space it occupies. It is so small that
it could be worked in any ordinary dining-room. The
economy of space is obtained by supplying the
machine with paper and taking it off at one place. Each
Hoe machine requires ten feeding boards and ten delivery
boards, whereas the Bullock press is satisfied from one roll
of paper which is not divided into sheets, but forms a
continuous band. The end of this band is received by the
machine, and passed round a roller, which cuts it off at
the length required. It then gees on, and is brought in
contact with another roller, round which the type is fixed,
and here the paper is printed on one side. It passes
forward, and meets another roller containing type, and is
there printed on the other silo. It comes out perfectly
pierced at the tail of the machine. The chief difficulty in
the manipulation arises after the paper has passed through
the machine. It will be readily seen that
to - dispose of papers which come out at the
rate of 120 per minute is no very easy matter.
The difficulty has been got over by a most simple and
ingenious contrivance : the cutters' band of leather is
caused to pass over the paper just as it comes from the
machines. This band is made to run at the same speed
as the paper, and as the end of the sheet leaves the
machine a small clip on the leatherband flies back and seizes
the paper which it carries on for the length of the sheet.
The clip is then released, and at the same instant a small
flap flies down on the back of the sheet, places it on the
heap, and flies back again in time to secure the next sheet.
In this way the papers are all delivered on to
one board, and are easily removed by a
labourer without interrupting the machine. The
attendants have nothing to do but to supply the machines
with rolls of paper and buckets of ink ; all the rest is
accomplished by steam power, and, beyond this, the force
of invention cannot much further go. These machines
will not only be more economical and convenient in ope-
ration, but the first cost will also be far less than those
which have hitherto been used. They also do their work
much better, and their introduction will be an additional
stimulus to the still further improvement of daily news-
papers

ICE ACCIDENTS.