The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-08-27 00:00:00

IMPORTANT TO THE PRESS,

A most ingenious machine has recently been in-
vented for the purpose of setting up type with greater
facility and despatch than by the present mode. The
London Times, in commenting on the invention, stated
one or two objections to it, and the originators sent to
the editor the following letter which appeared in the
Times on Wednesday. The master printers have had
many grievances to complain of, arising from the un-
reasonable demands made upon them by the compo-
sitors ; and, as there is every probability of the eventual
success of the machine, they will be hereafter inde-
pendent of their subordinates.

Sir,—You have always attached so much importance to
every improvement that has of late years been made in
typography, that we have no doubt you feel much interested
In the machine invented by us, of which you give a short ac-
count in this day's paper, and we feel certain you will with
pleasure admit into your columns a few remarks in elucida=
tion of your observations on the subject.
In the above account, then, although every justice is ren-
dered to the exceeding rapid manner in which the type is set
up by the assistance of the apparatus in question (estimated
to set up from 12,000 to 14,000 per hour, or 7 or 8 times as
fast as at present),* an error apparently slight, but materially
affecting the interests of the patentees, has fallen into—we
allude to your remarks on justification, and the collecting of
the lines in succession to form a column of a newspaper or a
page of a book.

Now, these two operations have hitherto been so intimately
connected with setting up, as to induce many printers to look
upon them as taking up a very important portion of time,
whereas by repeated experiments made of the performances
of various compositors, we find that a column of a paper,
containing 12,000 types, may be reduced from long lines into
lines of the width of a column of The Times and justified in
less than an hour (the average time employed in our experi-
ments was 10 seconds per line of 50 types, which gives only
40 minutes for 12,000). Our plan has further the advantage
of' separating setting up from justification and the collecting
into lines, two operations now performed alternately by one
person, and those who are acquainted with the advantages of
division of labour in newspaper printing must fully appreciate
this.

The distribution of type is not performed by the apparatus
121 question, but its use indirectly facilitates this operation,
for by Our plan the type, after it is distributed, must be put
into regular lines, in order to fill the machine properly ; and
this allows, therefore, of its being corrected, which is im-
possible by the present plan. This setting into lines, or
tilling of the machine, which may be done whilst the com-
positor is playing the keys, is a very simple operation, pre-
cisely similar to that which type-founders boys practise, who
set into sticks, as it is termed, at the rate of 4,000 or s'ooo
types per hour ; and a trifle will cover this expense and that
of removing the receiving-groove from the compositor to the
justifier.
Finally, the operations will stand thus—distribution not
being taken into account, as it is similar in both cases :