New-York tribune., 1911-11-29

a train which will carry It into the terri
tory surrounding the very scene of the
accident. as well as into territory whose
extent is TO be measured only oy the posi-
hle speed Of tho train, and the next morn
ing, scarcely twelve hours from the time OF
the disaster. the details Of Il are to be read
throughout the world.
Type Setting Machines Invented.
In the mechanical end the revolutions OF
the seventy-yesr period are even harder 10
realize and appreciate In the early for
ties and for many years thereafter the old
and comparativcly slow method of hand
setting was the only manner OF rPe.
setting known and practsed. The sklll oI
those old-time compostors can scarcely be
appreciated in these days Of machine WORK.
but when the statement is made from his
tory that II was not until toward the end
Of the seventies that any typesettins ma
chine was put before the public, and the
great newspapers Of days previous 10 tha'
date were set by hand the pleasurabie du-
ties of the old-tme compositor can be
measured.
Almost since the invention Of printing ~
self II was the dream Of hundreds OF IN
ventors to realize a machine which would
sot tvno For every other mechanical proc
ess Of printing. advance by machine meth
DDS was rapid and continuous. But the
one problem Of high speed typesettins oy
machinery continued TO delay the day oi
the modern new spaper as it is now known
for years.
As q commercial invention it was al
tempted by a dozen men who came close
10 attaining success through the seventies
but II was practically not until lsS that
the real beginning of usable, commercial,
high speed machines became an actually.
Then Otto Mergenthaler designed and built
his now well known linotype, with only
one character in each matriX. The year
before the same man designed and built
two machines Of a somewhat similar type
but their structure was SO complicated that
they we're useless commercially because OF
the great expense Of building them.
Previous 10 1884, too. other men had
aimed at the single invention which stood
between the old slow method Of hand
setting type and the machine setting which
they all were sure was bound 10 come, but
like Nereenthaler's first efforts, they were
too expensive in construction TO admit Of
tpe,r successful marketing. In 1885 Mer-
gentbaler built two hundred of his ma
cbires ton of which we're sold in England
Tribune First to Use LirotXpe.
The FIRST four Of these machines to be
used in the United States were installed
in the composing rooms Of the New York
Tribune
Since then the machine has, Of course
been improved steadily. until now there are
I'm the United States alone upward OF one
Thousand Ustents issued on the machine
and its improvements The latest type can
distribute 90 matrices a minute, and has
q keyboard containing ninety keys. ON
four-masaziue linotype Of the present DAY
79o characters are controlled by the one
operator from the ninety-key keyboard.
Strictly speaking, of course the linotype
does not set type. but rather it is a maker
of lines. or sugs representing lines, and
the hot molten type lead works on inc
unit of a complete newspaper line
The inventor Of this machine. which gave
the final impression to the change from
the old method of The Tribune Of 1al to
the new method of the present day Tribune
died on October 2S 1899, at the age OF
forty-fve. 50 IL can he seen that the prac-
teal victory over tlllN iA'N S''''' ''i'Ni'
the present speed Of modern newspapers Is
practically Of the present generation. In
cidentaIly IL might be mentioned also that
as an exception to the generally quoted
rule about inventors, Otto Mergenthaler
died a rich man and left TO his heirs a
system Of perpetual royalties.
Iu the method Of printing itself the seventy
years which The Tribune has lived nave
seen advances almost beyond comprehen-
sion certainly beyond the widest dreams
of those earnest men who were continually
working to better and make swifter the
process.
Inventors Of the early f0's realized that
the newspaper field Of printing demanded
constantly increasing speed. but when a
glance backward discloses that fact 1t vas
not until near the close Of the War of III
that tile first steam operated press was IN
stalled in a newspaper Office the develop
ments since that time point plainly the
great advance.
Before that William Nicholson in 1870 had
put forth the idea that printing would have
/ to be done on cylinder presses TO altar
/ speed and, looking toward the future, h'
also set forth the idea that wedge shapec
type would have 10 be a forerunner of the
cylinder press. Nicholson, however, was
an author and not a printer and his idea
Continued on fifteenth page