The Indianapolis sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1880-1904, 1885-01-11

Daily UIiveTsai Register proved more
and more successful. Ii was a dingy lit
tie sheet, about twice rs large as a sheet
Of fOolscap. without leader" and con-
tanning a small number of wellselected
paragraphs of news. 1t had also oc-
~casionally a short notice of the PLAYS of
the night before. and few items of what
We now call fashionable intelligence"
The advertisements, after the paper had
been in existence three year., averaged
about fifty a day. most of them very
short. Its price was threepence. The
paper upon which il was printed was
coarse and cheap. In the third year OF
its existence, on the first of January,
1888, the name was changed e. the
Times.
From this period the newspaper ap
pears 10 have gone forward, without any
interruption, to the present dav. In due
time John Walter withdrew from the
management, snd gave II up to his eldest
sOn, John Walter the second, who seems
"a have possessed his fathers resolution
and energy, with more knowledge of the
world and a better education. 1t was he
wh" took the first decisive step toward
placing the Times at the head of
journalism.
Until the year 1914, all the printing
IN the world was done by hand. and the
Times could only De struck off at the rate
t four hundred and fifty copies an hour.
Hence, the circulation Of the paper, when
it had reached three or four thousand
copies a day, had attained the utmost
davolOpmant than Srpposo1 RI ho rccS;
bic; and when such news came as that Of
the battle of Austerlitz, Trafalgar or
Waterloo, the edition was exhausted long
before the demand was supplied. There
was a c~ompositor in the Office of the
Times, named Thomas Martyr, who, as
early as 1904. conceived the idea of ap-
plying Watts improved steam engine to
a printing press. He showed his model
To John Walter, who furnished him with
money and room in which to continue
his experiments, and perfect his machine;
but the pressmen pursued the inventor
with such blind hate, that the man was
in terror of his life from day to day, and
the sche me was given up.
Ter years later another ingenious in
ventor, named, Konig. procured a patent
ioI n sledtH press, anu MI. waiter oeter-
mined to give his invention a trial at all
hazards. The press was secretly set up
in another building, and a few men,
pledged to secrecy, were hired and put
in training TO work it. On the night of
the trial the pressmen in the Times build
ing were told that the paper would not
go to press until very late, as important
news was expected from the Continent.
AT six in the morning John Walter went
into the pressroom and announced to the
men that the whole edition of the Times
had been printed by steam during the
night, and thenceforth the steam press
would be regularly used. He told the
men that if they attempted violence there
was a force at hand 10 suppress it; but if
they behaved well, no man should be a
loser by the invention. They should
either remain in their situations, or re-
ceive full wages until they could procure
Others. This conduct in a rich and power
ful man was no more than decent. The
men accepted his terms with alacrity.
The Times is still chiefly owned and
conducted by Mr.. John Walter, the
grandson Of the founder.