The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-03-07

Difficulties Which Stil Remain To BE Over
come by the Inventor.

s'Gath's'' Washington Letter.
Mr.. James E. Munson called to see me again
q few days ago. in New York, and, in speaking
of his inventions in regard to setting type by
machinery, our conversation drifted to the sub
ject OF another mode Of so-called cheapening of
the process Of printers composition. which has
been much talked of lately in newspaper circles.
I refer to what is commonly known as the BAL
timore machine"
| said: "Have you seen the Baltimore ma
chine. and can you give some idea of the manner
in which 1t does its workla
mo; I have not seen it in operations; at least
not in its present shape; but from conversing
with several persons who have seen it have OBJ
tanned pretty complete and accurate information
in regard to it. 1t does not use the ordinary
type with which newspapers and books are now
set up. but makes its own castings, a line at a
time.
1.-THE machine is worked by an operator, who
plays on a keyboard that resembles in It's ar
rangement the keyboard of the Remington type
writer. But as the keys are successfully de-
pressed with the fingers, instead of setting a line
OF type, as is the case with the hand type-setting
machines, or of making perforations on a strip of
paper, as done in my automatic process, they
cause q row OF type matrices or type molds to fall
into line; and then as soon as all the matrices for
a column line are SET, melted type metal is
forced into the mold, and the entire line is cast
with one operation. This casting is then auto
matically carried into the column on the galley
said. How about the justi6cation-in other
words, how are these lines of metal made of
equal length. so that they can be used in print
ingl"
1.-THE justification, or the spacing of the words,
so that all the lines will be of the same length,
is done by the operator of the machine as follows:
By means of a pointer, which moves along upon
a scale before the eyes of the operator, as the
voa VIZ ORC heinz cat IN %hn roonnnw 9acorihoH
he is enabled to determine where the line shall
end. Then, having reached that point, he puts
his foot upon a treadle, which causes a number
of wedges to be driven upward between the
words, thus forcing them apart until the mat
rices at each end of the line strike their fixed
limits. Then this line of justified matrices
passes to the line mold, and the metal is forced
into it,"
when and how is the correcting of the proofs
done9'
process, in my opinion" said Mr.. Munson, lis
fatally defective. If an error is made by the
operator, no matter if IL be only of a single let
ter, the whole line of metal must be thrown
away and a new one made in the same way to
take its place. And if the correction of the
error makes it impossible for the operator to
terminate the line in the new casting where it
ended in the first one, not only must that partic-
ular line be made again. but several succeeding
lines, and very probably the remainder of the
UdE10TdUu UkuSb NC ESSok dlu IcCdSb.
'.Then, you think that in iustifying ana cast
ing the lines before the corrections are made
they have got the cart before the horseg'
"Yes, they have; and a pretty serious matter
they will find it in actual practice. 1t is all very
well to have one or two operators selected be-
cause of their great experience, skill and accu-
racy to show off this machine. But when they
come to introduce it into printing Offices, where
they will be obliged to employ the ordinary run
of operators, it will be a different thing. For
several years l have employed typewriter oper-
ators to do my stenograpnlc work, and, although
the skill and accuracy of some are to me very
wonderful, yet | find that the best of them make
mistakes, while those who cannot be classed as
Al are constantly striking the wrong key. Some
of the mistakes that they make are very
peculiar, and are quite different from those
made by hand compositors. 1t is not uncom-
mon with some operators to find a short word
printed entirely backward, as 'dna' for and.
But with the typewriter most errors are easily
corrected, while with the Baltimore machine,
as l have said, no errors can be corrected ex-
cept by doing one or more entire lines over
again.
Another objection said Mr.. Munson, ''that
I have to make to this machine, which does not
seem to hare received any notice. is that its OPP
orator has TOO many different things to attend
to. He must, OF course. be constantly looking
back and forth from his copy to the key board.
Besides that, he has to keep his eye on the little
index to see that he is not caught too
near the Gnu Oh d llH6 WIFI q long
undividable word or syllable, such as
which or trans and then he has to determine
where it is best to have the lines end, and finally
he presses his foot uDon the treadle in order to
send up the justifying wedges. In this respect
he is decidedly at a disadvantage. even as COM
pared with the operator of a typewriter. The
effect of having so many things to distract his
attention must necessarily be an increased num-
Der of errors, and. therefore. of lines TO be set
and cast over again. The setting of a line, then
= a. a - - - "a 4 4
in column before a single correction has been
made, seems to me very much like ordering a
suit of clothes, having them made up and sent
home, and then going around to the tailor to
have him take your measure. So, too, the de-
s~truction of a line, and oftantimes an entire par
agraph, after it has been cast, In order to insert
corrections, is somewhat suggestive of the econ
omy Of burning down your log house every time
you want roast pig for dinner"
Said !: aside from the defects in the pro-
cess you have mentioned, what have you to say
as to the character of the work done by the ma
chine as compared with ordinary printing types?'
Upon that point I have not taken pains to get
all the information / could. One day, a week or
so ago, | met a friend, a prominent New York
Journalist. who had been on to Baltimore to gee
this machine. He evidently was captivated by
it, as he remarked that it would break up all the
type foundries in the country. questioned him
quite closely in regard to the working of the ma
chine, and he was obliged to admit that all /
nave JUST SSSU dDOuL tue making OF corrections
after the matter has been put in met
al was exactly true. My conversation
with him led me to start out the
other day and visit all the leading type founders
in this city to find out what their opinion MS were
in the premises. One of them who, fortunately
for me, had just returned from Baltimore. where
he had seen the machine in operation, said that
ne and other type-founders who were with him
had carefully examined the lines of type-metal
as they came from the machine-'slugs,' he
called them-with a magnifying glass, and that
he found fully one-half of the faces were so i'm
perfect that if they had been made in his own
foundry he should pick them. that is. reject
them and throw them into the melting-pot
again. Another objection that he made to
the process was the fact that it was impossible to
keep the mold constantly at the proper tempera-
ture. This difficulty is the result of two princi-
pie causes. In the first place, the mold is stand
ing idle. and consequently is cooling off while
the operator is setting and justifying a line of
matrices. In the next place the matrices them
selves do not come into the mold having uniform