The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-03-12
A SILENT NEWSBOY.
Put Your Nickel i'm the Slot and
He Does the Rest.
ALWAYS GIVES coRREcTcHANeE
Automatic vender which Sells News
papers and Books Invented by Seat
tie Men-To Be Made Here.

tiohS mas been more successful or come
into more general use than the automatic
vending machine. 1t is in general use
ooth IN this country and Europe, and has
peen found to save labor, wonderfully
cheap to operate and more accurate and
honest IN its dealings than any human
salesman.
But hitherto one field has remained IN
occupied by this invention. 1t sells cigars,
gumdrops, sausages, etc, because they can
be put in uniform packages to fit its COM
partments, but it has not until now been
adjusted to sell newspapers of varying size
and price. Newspapers abhor uniformity
and will not come down to any arbitrary
size. thickness and price, but vary accord
ing to the taste of the publishers and their
patrons, and the occasion on which they
are issued
For instance, in New York on Saturday
afternoon there will appear a small, iimsy
four-rage paper, sold for l cent, to be fol-
lowed on Sunday morning by large
forty-page paper, sold for cents. Even
the same paper of the same size and num-
Der of pages varies in weight at different
times, according to whether it is wet or
dry. Many machines have been made in
the attempt to make them take the place
OF the human news vender but this diff
Guilty has been found insurmountable, and
when the would-be purchaser put his coin
IN the slot the paper failed to come out,
and the victim went away denouncing the
machine as confidence trick. The vary
ing prices of different newspapers, from
the 1-cent daily in the Eastern cities to the
D-cent weekly, have also proved great
obstacle.
1t is essential that machine of this
kind should be absolutely perfect. In Or
der to do the business it must deliver the
goods with absolute certainty Immediately
upon receiving the coin through the slot,
and the mechanism must be easily adapted
to daily changes in the size and weight of
the article and in the price. Hitherto
these requisites have proved insuperable
obstacles to the success of attempts to
adapt the automatic vender to the sale Of
newspapers.
1t has been reserved for Seattle COM
pany-the Durie-Begg company-to solve
the several problems involved in perfect
ing a machine of this kind. Every one
of the conditions described has been met
in model now set up in this city, which is
the result of the joint efforts of ex-Mayor
Robert Moran, of the Moran Bros. Com
pany, the Moran-Durie Supply Company
| and the Seattle Dry Dock and Ship-Build-
ing Company; David f. Durie, who is also
largely interested in the last two cor
porations and was the founder of the
Seattle Telegraph, and Alexander Begg,
manager of the Victoria News These
| gentlemen have been working on it for
years and have already spent thousands of
dollars and days and nights of thought
and labor, having made no less than
| twenty working models before achieving
| perfection. They are solid, responsible
| business men, have abundant capital to
manufacture and introduce the machine
| throughout the world, and have abundant
| facilities to manufacture it in this city,
| thus making a valuable addition to the in
dustries of Seattle.
| The specimen machine is a handsome
| cabinet of polished oak, with nickel
| plated fittings and castings and corner
| pieces. 1t is about six feet high, and is
| wide enough to carry the average news
| paper folded to one-fourth of the size of
the page. 1t has compartments for the
three Seattle daily papers, with which it
was tested. There are, one above another,
| three oak doors, on which are labels bear
| ing the names of the Posr-INrELLIGENCER
| each is a slot for the nickels Below the
doors is slot through which the papers
| are delivered to the purchaser. Below
this again is another door giving entrance
| to steel box, into which the money drops
! from the slots and which has an independ-
| ent lock.
| This machine is model of simplicity.
| Each improvement made in the course of
| its evolution was in the direction of SIM
| plicity. Reliability is one of its essentials +;
| TO be reliable it must be simple, and SIM
! plicity is secured by the absence of COM
| plicated machinery. On his recent trip to
| Europe, Mr.. Durie took the opportunity of
studying the many machines of this kind
| in use there, but found that none of them
approached this invention in reliability
and ease of adjustment to various pur-
| poses.
| 1t delivers the goods into the purchaser
hand without any double motion. He is
! not required to put a coin in the slot and
then pull lever or catch; he merely drops
| coin in the slot opposite the paper he
| wants, and takes paper which shoots
! half way out of the slot at a convenien
| height from the bottom of the case. II is
absolutely honest, it never fails to deliver
| the goods as long as il has any, and as
soon as any compartment is empty, the
slot closes so tight that it is impossible to
/ force coin into it. and sign gives notice
that the box is empty.
| 1t also makes change with unerring
| accuracy. 1t can't be "him- damned and
will not attempt to ''him-ham" its Gus
toners; square dealing is its motto. Ii a
customer wants a nickel newspaper and
wants change for a quarter dollar, he
drops his coin in the slot and out comes
/ the paper with the change upon it.
When 20 cents change out of p cents is
| wanted, a card comes out of the same
| thickness as a nickel and transparent
| paper holds in place in holes punched in
/ it four nickels.. The purchaser can see
| that he has received the correct change,
and when he wants to buy another paper
he has only to push nickel out of the
card with his thumb. 1t makes change
| proportional 10 the price of the article on
sale. Even without this feature it would
I fill all ordinary requirements, for every
! body has small change in the great cities
| of the East and change is still less needed
on this Coast, where the people affect TO
despise small coins.
The machine can be adjusted to sell
articles at any price. 1t will sell l-cent
| paper in the evening and a 5-cent paper
ten times the bulk the next morning. 1t
will sell 1-cent paper from one box, a
! scent paper from another and a 2S-cent
! magazine from another. Thus different
/ articles can be put on sale through it on
! different days or at different times of days.
/ II will sell books, photographs, steel