Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1892-11-24
Uses OF Machinery in Printing.

gCharles f. Allen in Evening Express.
IL has been subject OF comment that
while the = trt prrservative has un iergone
raIical changes in every other department,
the type setting is done today rs II was four
hunired years ago. Will. jhe presses OF
the great city dallies throw off perfect sheets
at too rapid rate for ordinary counting,
and the stereotype process seems TO De
modern modification OF the Old block print
ing, no machine for rapid type setting has
ever proved entirely satisfactory. While at
the Riverside Press lioughton, Mifiiin K Co. J
| recently, was pleased to watch the opera
ton of IA recently perfected type setting
and distributing machine. Then set type
| with it myself, and then, although | failed
TO remember the name of the inventor,
| CLEANED the following facts: The copy II
Ms must be put into typewriter, because
the operator cannot pause to guess at a
word, occasionally. Then three persons
| are needed to operate it, one feeder, one
setter and one who '.justifies' the lines. 1t
sets and distributes at the same time, and
while the inventors claim flat its capacity is
unlimited, tn. most that has been done in a
day of 10 hours is 5000 ems.
Now what are the advantages! II is a
question whether any person can stand the
nervous strain required TO keep up with a
machine and attempting to do nothing but
set" sc, 900 types day or more. think
my memory is good when ! assert that on
new spaper work have set thousand an
hour of bourgoise, minion or nonpareil,
while ON book work 900 to 5000 per day
is good But justifying and distribution
were agreeable changes which brought
relief. The work of the compositor is
peculiar. On the cheapest kind of work
many blunders show lack of proper thought
but on better kinds the reputation of both
author and publisher, to say nothing of the
printer, are at stake and can
a mere machine take the place
of a thinking man. Many of the compost
tors at Riverside have spent their whole
lives at the ease and might be prejudieed
but the foreman was inclined to believe that
a machine could never take the place of a
good typo and give entire satisfaction except
on very few works.
An engraver showed me how machinery
was employed to do much that was in my
time done wholly by hand. but he remarked
that it had aided the higher class of work
rather than proved detrimental for all
classes of people had taken a step upward.
And surely. while nothing in the way OF
engraving will surpass the Inning of a
hundreds years ago, the common people are
now much better served with pictures
than they were q years ago.
This is especially noticeable in school
books. But while modern processes are
cheapening, and at the same time giving US
better wholesale 80 to speak, results, it is
question whether much that comes from
the teeming press tends to stimulate
thought, or whether readers really appreci-
ate the good in literature or art as much as
a smaller class once did. The old time far
mer read his weekly with great care and
preserved it for reference, or to loan to his
neighbor. His son today skins over the
daily for base ball, or exciting items called
news, and in few hours the paper is old
and thrown aside