The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-01-16
RI-CENTENARY OF THE INVENTION OF THE FIRST TYPEWRITER

A
 Two hundred years ago today Hen-s ry Mill. an English engineer, com pleted the first crude machine design ed to do the work of the pen, and gave an exhibition of it's capacities. which were very limited indeed. when compared with the wonderful type writers of the present. Two days lat CT MilI,s application for a patent was granted. Mills writing machine would doubtless have been forgotten long ago. except for the record in the British patent office. Yet Mill is entitled to all the honors of a pioneer 1n any line of useful endeavor. and the busy clicking of a myriad type writers, in offices and homes all over the civilized world, and fitted to ev- cry language, will serve as a ceIebra- ton of the bi-centenary of his inven-. ton.
 MiIl's machine held no commercial possibilities, and the same was true of similar inventions for much more. than a century. The first American patent for a3 typewriter was granted, to William A. Burt. a Detroit inven- tor. in 1929. It was a real type writer, but it was very rough and crude in construction, and it's speed was a negligible quantity. Only one of Burt's machines was ever built, and that one was destroyed by fire in the Washington patent office in 1929.
 In the meantime several European inventors were working on the writ. ing machine problem. and in 1893 a Frenchman, Xavier Proyrin, of Mar seilles, produced a machine that eIn- braced many of the principles of the
 modern typewriter. Ten years later Charles Thurber, of Worcester, Mass, patented a typewriter that was an i'm provement on all its predecessors, but it was not as rapid as the pen, aud hence had no practical value, except that it served to incite others to inn prove upon 1t. Tn Thurberss machine a flat, horizontal wheel carried upon it's circumference perpendicu1ar typerods bearing letters at their low CT ends. He also invented cylindri-. cal platen for carrying the paper which was not dfssimiIar to those us- ed on the typewriters of today. A little later Pierre Foucalt, blind Frenchman, invented a writing ma chane for the blind that had some of the features of a typewriter.
 The next big step toward the per- fected typewriter was taken by A. D. Beach, Of New York, who in 1856 patented a machine in which the type bars were set in vertical position around a horizontal brass wheel The following year pr. 8. W. Francis, an other New Yorker, invented a ma chine in which 8 motion similar to that of 9 piano-hanmer was em- pIoyed to throw up to a. comm on center the type-bars arranged in aFi circle. This machine had a carriage travelling from side to side over the type basket, blank key for spacing. and an alarm bell to indicate the end of the line. The Francis type- writer, and the House machine of 1865. were commercial fmpossibi1ities, but the inventors were getting warm, and In 1887 a really practical type- writer was produced by c. II. shoels, s. w. sholes and Carlos GIidden, three Milwaukee inventor ors Their first ma .chane was the parent of the multi tude Of typewriters in use today
 The United States has always led in the manufacture of typewrfters. The annual exports Of writing ma chimes from the United States are valued at over s12.000s0 oosas compar- ed with about s150;ooo for the United Kingdom. fFsrom speed of twenty five words a minute, the speed of machines and operators has developed until the present wor1dss record. made last year by Margaret B. Owen, is 125l words per- minute The late Mark Twain was the first literary man to
 use g typewriter in the preparation Of manuscript for publication
 February 2 is the date set for the Great Meadow. (N. Y , prison graft trial at Hudson Falls.
 "A four weeks old baby of excellent lung power was found in q suitcase or a. New York ferryboat