Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1861-04-05
a CURIOUS TYPE-sETTER.

n
Willis, in his letter to the Home jour
nal, says: the machine "to insert pig at
one end and grind out sausages at the 9TH
err" is really 'sslOw'' in comparison with
the new invention forsetting types-a Wis
it to which was the object ofmy walk with
Redfeld, after leaving you at the office, the
other day, Before describing it, let me ask
with our friend the editor of the Albion,
"Where will civilizations stop ?"-his (Mr.
Young's) unwillingness to " improve" any
farther, being based upon the contrivance
of the new gun, (McCord's) which is to be
worked by crank, can be fired two hun
dred and forty times in a. minute, and is
loaded through a hopper killing of
course, a respectful e-sized regiment every
two seconds |! For even this is nothing to
the foreshadowing of Alden's type-setter'
which not only can set types as fast as
eight men, but distributes, or restores to
their places, the same amount by the same
process-an anto-recuperot'on Of outlay,
which it is wonderous to believe Qor an ed
itor, at LEAST may be possible principle
in nature
The type-setter is worked like piano.
by playing on jkeys--ther mere touch on
thekey, for the letter a, for instance, being
instead of the old fashion of taking up that
letter with the fingers, turning it right end
up and right side front and putting it into
the line, to be adjusted with spaces. 1t is
a revolving table of brass-the machine
worked by the smallest steam-power, and
the cost is about fifteen hundred dollars.
1t would "clear itself" of course, by the sa-
wing Of labor Ito say. nothing of the accel
Grafton of work to which speed is 50 neces-
sary,) in very short time Without going
into particular description of the ma
chinery, I may say, as one who has been
well-taught typc-setter himself, that it
seemed to me as the locomotive seems to
the stage-driver, OF as the steamboat to the
paddler of the canoe-an impossible deSid-
eratum brought miraculously to pass.
Perhaps the most curiously ingenious
part of the invention is that which gives
the .compositor achance to, scratch his head
or indulge in a revery,, speak to his friend
or light his cigar, mend the grammar or
criticise the "copy'-obviating, that is to
say, the necessity of rigidly keeping up
with the unvarying steam-propulson of
the machine. This is done by a register
acheel which makes signals for the letters
before they are taken, and which will al
low as many as sixty to accumulate before
they are disposed of, yet with no hinder
ance to the action of the machinery.
Could anything be more like brain turn
ed into brass? .............. ..
The inventor of this wonderful affair,
Timothy Alden, was a practical prin-
ter; and to it he devoted twenty years, dy-
ing when he had at last perfected this
brain and nerves giving wayto the diseases
of INSTRUMENTATION Of thought and will.
How many are victims, in these " fast
days." to this kind of everlasting! Yet
Alden lived long enough of life, if meas
ured by benefit to his race. What were
the cvontless centuries of a Methuselah las
a good to the world,) in comparison with
the twenty-year, invention, Of this Mass
achusetts type, setter?
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