New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-04-06
WONDERS OF THE PRESS.
A GREAT TRANSPORTATION IN NEWSPAPER
PRINTING.


THIRTY YEABs-A VIEW OF THE TRIBUNE
VAULTS.
In eonside ring the extraordinary development OF
journalism during the past twenty-five or thirty
wears there Is one cause Of its prosperity ana III
crease which is often overlooked. The cultivation
of the peculiar kind OF talent required iof tue oes'
Newspaper work. the general recognition OF the Cali
ING of an editor as liberal and responsible probes
son. the increase in the average OF popu-
lar culture and the consequent demand 1of
a better order of periodical hterature-these
influences upon the character OF the piess
are fairly estimated. Everybody understands
also what enormous changes have been made I'D ihe
newspaper business by the invention of the tele-
graph, which enables us to collect Inteihseiice
promptly, and the Improvements in the railway ana
postal service which insure its prompt Distribution.
But ali these things would have been of slight avail
had not the ingenuity of inventors of printing ma
chimes kept pace with the increasing wants OF the
public aud thespublishers With such mechanical
facilities as even the best offices could command
thirty years ago. a great newspaper OF the present
style would have been impossible-we might al
most say inconoeiyabe. The fast printing press mas
done ss much for journalism as the telegraph anu
the railroad
THE TRIBUNE has always been quick to see the ad-
yantages promised by improvements IN the processes
of printing and always one of the earliest TO aVai
itself of Them 1t has Just set in operation novel
press-the first of its kind seen in this country
and almost the first ever made-wheh marks as
great q progress over the huge ten-eylinder light
ming press of twenty years ago as that magnificent
machine did over the old fat bed and cylinder
press upon which the primitive TRIBUNE was printed
in 1S41.
THE FIRST TRIBUNE PRESS.
When Horace Greeley. with borrowed capl'ai
of 81 600 and q subscription list OF 500 names,
launched upon the streets of New-York his modest
venture in daily journalisH-the whole paper con-
tanning no more matter than we now publish on a
single leaf-a fat press. capable OF turning ont
l,5O0 papers an hour, was ample for his needs
Such a machine was considered az that time a
triumph of the inventors art. The daily paper was
sent TO the printer at midnight, and two OF three
men. working at the press until ID o'clock in the
morning were able 70 get ont rs large an edition
as the most prosperous journal could expect
TO sell. Il was not possible TO use more
than two presses-one for each side of the sheet
because the application Of stereotyping to newspa-
pers had not then been discovered and 1t cost too
much money and too much time 10 set the type in
duplicate. Hence the utmost capacity OF a frst-
class newspaper pressroom, thrty-seven years ago.
was 1000 or 900 copies an hour. This limitation
in the speed of manufacture hampered the journalist
In several WAYS. He could not print late news. He
eould not make early sales. He could not eX-
tend his out-of-town circulation. And he
could not hope for the large revenues which
are necessary for a good paper. For nearly
ten years after the establishment OF HE 1RIB-
UNE progress was blocked by this mechanical
difficulty. There was of course steady improve
ment in the quality of newspaper writing. and a
steady stimulation of enterprise in the collection Of
news; but while editions were limited TO ten or
twelve thousand copies and the production of these
used mn the most valuable hours Of the night, the
scope of the newspaper was closely confined there
was rigid boundary which the abest journalist
could not hope to pass.
HOES FIRST ROTARY PRESS,
The man who broke through this barrier at last
was Colonel Richard NJ Hoe, and one of the earliest
newspapers-though not absolutely the irst-to
make use of his invention was The NEW-lo DIRK
TRIBUNE. In the old style of press the type was
placed on fat bed, and travelled back and forth,
first under a roller which applied the ink. and
then under revolving cylinder which carried the
paper. 1t was somewhat cumbroUs arrangement,
and the extreme of speed attainable under it was
very soon reached. The device of Colonel Hoe rev.
olutionized the whole process. He placed the type
itself on revolving cylinder and in contact with
this revolved four impression cylinders. each with
its sheets of paper following one another
with the rapdity of flash. This as before the in-
vention Of the PAPER mache process Of sereotypng
and newspapers, of course, were printed from the
type and not from plates. Colonel Hoes idea OF
attaching columns of type to the surface OF a
rapidly revolving cylinder was ridiculed as
the dream of mailman. He was assured that
the thing was n glaring mpossibility; there
was no way of adjusting rectangular types to Z
curved surface and if he could get the bits OF
metal to stand firm on a cylinder at rest, they
would surely be thrown off by the tremendous cen
trifugal force as be began to speed the
machine Even after Colonel Hoe had falSlfed all
these predictions by accomplishing the supposed
impossibilities, and had exhibited several of the
new presses in successful operation, curious Illus
tration Of persistent incredulity was afforded by
The London Times. The prOprietOrs of that journal
comprehended that the speed OF every printing
press in which the heavy type had TO be thrown
back and forth under on impression cylinder
had already reached its maximum, and that
the only way to get faster printing wai
to give the type rotary motion. But they would
not believe that type could be fixed on a curved
surface and with Characteristic contempt fol
American smartness, they set up clumsy, cost,
and Intellectual modification of the Applegath ma
chine, in which the columns Of type were placed OF
vertical revolving prsms. and the sheets Of pape
were fed in edgewise and taken out by hand in the
same prcposterous position. In 1913, however
Colonel Hoe built rotary press for the Paris daily
journal, la Patrie, and the success of the expert
ment there led to its introduction into England
few years later.
LIGHTNING PRESSES"
The four-cylinder press built for The Tribune il
1850 was the ninth machine of the class that Colone
Hoes firm had made, and it did admirable servic'
here for many years. 1t threw off about 5000 i'm
pressons an hour. printed of course, on one side
the sheet only and the process had TO be repeated
for the other side lis actual capacity 1000 com
plete papers an hourly which at that day some
.,;n.r r,,,nrncndented and rnaryellnus. But haYin