Connecticut western news., 1884-01-16
TYPE-SETTING MACHINES.
WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO TAKE THE PLACE OF HAND LABOR.
How Types are Set and Distributed Me- chRnieally-Vast sums Sunk In ENperi- ment-The IResuIts of Years of ENperi- ence.
From the New York sun.l

cambre, patented in this country a type setting machine, which ill some respects may be regarded as the parent of at least some of the more important prin- ciples of mechanism since involved in the construction of the Burr and several later kindred inventions. In it the types were arranged in upright channels above the key board, and, as successively liber- ated by the action of keys, travelled singly down inclined planes. by serpentine channels, and were ranged into long line which had to be subsequently broken up and justified. A distributor was associated with the machine, but in the judgment of practical printers was less effective than the setting apparatus.
 The next machine to claim public at- tention ill this line was the Alden, a very large and complicated thing, full of delicate mechanism, which concen- trated the types to a common center from radiating channels. It is said by those interested in it that more than $500, ,000 in cash has been put into the development of this machine, and still 1t has not yet been able to demonstrate it. self practical success, owing to its ill., tricacy, delieacy and liability to get out of order. Accompanying it was a dis tributor, in which the principle now in use on the Burr, Thorne and other ma chimes, of automatic selection of the types by the various hicks on their edges, was employed. About 1874 the Page machine was patented, and later distributor was associated with it, but after expending somewhere near a mil lion dollars on it, the stockholders are said to have allowed their interests to lapse back into the hands of the inven- tor, who is still hopefully at work on it. The Kastenbein machine, made in Brus- sels, is about twelve years old, and is understood to be acceptable in Ger many, but has not been found profitable here.
 Mir. George Munro bought three of these machines about two years ago to set up the German versions of his Sea side Library" stories, but found it cheaper to employ hand labor, and the machines now stand unused in his estab- lishment They are big, clumsy affairs, in which there seems to be a good deal of waste motion, unnecessary friction and uncalled-for complication. No dis tributor goes with them. Girls or boys have to distribute the ''dead matter" by hand, poking the types separately in little holes, where they drop into metal channels for transfer to the setting ap- paratus. Another foreign machine that has been shown, but never introduced here, was the Fraser of Edinburgh. It set up matter in a manner considerably like the Burr, or the parent Delcambre machines, but had distributor that at least presented the interest of novelty, as it worked by a sort of reversal of the setting principle, the types being picked up and carried to their respective places by the operation of keys. Although not successful here, it is said that this ma chine is employed proftably in John Blacks great printing establishment in Edinburgh.
 Ten Burr machines are used by Mir. George Munro, there are three more working in the Tribune office, and sev- eral are kept constantly employed by the manufacturers. They have been tested about two years. The machine is cum brous and it's distributor is very noisy, but beth work effectively, and with two hands to each apparatus turns out about as much solid matter day as would be expected from seven or eight ordinarily good compositors. Very expert and in- dustrious operators can exceed this pro portion, but the relative yield of work averages about that much. The weekly work-60 hours-of each "team" is ex- pected to be about 270,000 ems. That Is frequently exceeded, and one team here of exceptional ability has turned out ,O00 ems in a day and 343, 900 ems in the week. The cost of composition is divided up into several small parts, but aggregates a little less than twenty-five cents a thousand ems, as against the forty cents thousand paid for compost ton by hand. The "setter" who manip- ulates the keys, gets 6t cents thousand, the "iustifers," 63 cents; the "distrib- utor" cents; the "corrector" cents, the s'overrunners, who pick out quads, italics, and odd sorts from the dead mat ter before it goes to the distributing ma chine, get SIS week each, and there are two of them employed on the ten
 machines; the ''pi settlers" get S6 or Ss week, and there are other petty frac.
 tions of expense on minor labor, fairly
 chargeable to the machines, that bring up the total to the amount stated.
 That does not include interest on in. vestnent, which is considerable, as ter machines, with their distributing ap' ] paratus, represented S40, ,000. The type: in the Burr setter are arranged in long vertical channels above and in front oi the operator at the key board, and trave down their several ways to a carrier that l brings them out in a long line to the jus , tifier. All odd sorts must be added by
 hand. The working of that apparatus
 is not difficult for anybody to under stand, but the distributing machine ii complicated. In the latter the success sive page lines of type are lifted into
 place automatically and pushed along
 continuously on an endless carrier com, ,, posed of separate little blocks of steel. . The hicks on the types are the guide
 by which they are, as they pass along
 thrust down into their respective appro t priate channels. Those which ar @ missed in their progression, or odd sort Ll