Year: 1860




Description Of the London Times Omce


Particulars of the Mechanical Depart
mehts. .. ..i


The London correspondent Of the New
York Herald has recently paid visit to the
London Times Office, and writes long letter
thereabouti from which we extract:


Striking towards the Thames from off
Ludgate Hill, in the vicinity of Blackfriar's
Bridge, | threaded half dozen narrow
streets, and when near the river and satisfied
that had lost my way, came upon little
triangular space, from one side of which rose
a dingy looking brick building, over the door
of which was little sign, "The Times office"
and underneath, the aims of England. 1t
was perfect solitude, within three minutes
walk of one Of the great arteries of London.
| Upon entering was shown into small
ROOM called Nthe finishing ROOM" Here,
upon presenting my card, was introduced
to very gentlemanly man, who informed
me that he had been connected with the paper
for more than forty years, and who offered to
show me over the establishment. In his
room the forms are all made up, the galleys
being brought down from the composing
room and the one adjoining, for the purpose
Here alone were the galleys of matter and
advertisements left over, Of the latter Of
which my guide informed me there were
| often sixty or seventy columns, for which
| space cannot be found even in the immense
double-sheet which is daily published.


The day before, two thousand advertise
ments were taken in at the office, which is
alongside Of this finishing room, and which
is devoted exclusively to the reception of adj
vertsements-and about fifteen hundred diff
ferent ones go into the paper daily, making
up from eight to ten pages of the sixteen
printed. About six columns of these daily
are advertisements ofservants wanting places.
These are charged eighteen pence each, and
are limited to three lines many of them being
| rewritten after coming to the Office, and
| made to conform to the prescribed form. No
difference in price is made on account of any
additional number of insertions From here,
we went into an adjoining room, where the
| day compositors" were at work upon the
second edition of the paper, which is printed
at half-past twelve o'clock and contains, in
addition to the morning news, the letter Of
the Paris correspondent, and such foreign
matter as arrives in the morning mail. There
are fifty compositors employed in this depart
ment, and who, after the evening edition is
| worked, off, go to work upon the advertise
| ments, while there are seventy compositors
employed upon the night work, making in
all one hundred and twenty compositors.
To correct their matter there are employed
| twenty -lOur prOOl-TedueTS, OHe-Huu lOT Iue
day and the other half for the night.


THE FOUNDRY.


From the composing room we went into the
foundery. The morning edition of the Times
varies from sixty to seventy thousand copies,
and, in order to save the time in printing
and the expense of setting up an extra FORM
duplicate of the original form is made here
to be worked upon one press, while the
original itself is on the other. This is eff
fected in the following manner:-The form
being brought down here, pulp of papier
mache, prepared by some secret process, is
spread on it, and beaten into it with a large
heavy brush. This process and the harden
ing of the mould occupies but minute and
half and when it is taken off the form it, of
course, presents a perfect fac simile of the
form itself. 1t is then placed in a sort of a
press, and while yet pliable is shaped in the
circular form which it is necessary the forms
should have to accommodate themselves to
the cylinder presses and then the molten
type metal is poured in, and in two minutes
more it is cooled, and, being taken out of the
mould, the imperfections which have oc-
CURED in the casting are rectiied, and in halt
an hour this form is ready for the press. 1t
would require the work of seventy men
seven hours to effect the same purpose as
this little piece of work-which is done in
thirty minutes.


THE PRESS ROOM.


From this we went up into the press room
where by this time the evening edition was
being worked off upon two of Applegarth' S
eight-cylinder vertical presses. This is GER
tainly one of the most beautiful pieces of
machinery ever saw Four pages of the
circular forms are screwed on to an upright
cylinder, which forms the center of the huge
machine, which, in all its parts, is about
thirty feet in diameter. Then ranged around
a platform above are eight pairs of feeding
rollers, which take the sheet, and, conveying
it to the cylinder, pass it round it, and then
by means of rollers and tapes pass it back
directly under the feeding rollers, where it
entered, and where the fyboy sits to take it
off. In this way eight sheets are turned off
from the press each second and half, amount
ing to twelve thousand five hundred an
hour-the two presses in the morning. in
two hours, printing fifty thousand sheets.
These presses have been in operation since
l848 and have never been out of order but
once, when Prussian officer, who was ex-
amning one of them little too minutely,
had the cape of his cloak caught in the main
cylinder, and would himself have followed it
had he not retained sufficient presence of
mind to unclasp his outer garments, which
he must have done with lightning-like quick
ness. ....


These machines cost $4,000 each, and are
|
Each one require sixteen men to feed and
fly it.


In the adjoining room are two of Hoes ten
cylinder presses. These were built in Man
CHESTER and one has been in use for two or
three years. and the other has just been COM
pleted. These are used for printing the ad-
vertising pages, which go on at seven o'clock
in the evening, and the first side of the news
which commences at two in the morning
These machines cost f6, 600 each. They throw
off each l6, 400 impressions an hour, and have
been made to print 10000; but they complain
Of them that they had them manufactured
with the understanding that they would print
$4,000 an hour, but that they found, when
they struck off over 1900, some of the more
delicate portions of the machinery were liable
to breakage. Notwithstanding this how
ever, it seems they had another machine built
at double the cost of their Applegarth ma
chimes, and thus John Bull pays homage to
the inventive genius of Young America. 1t
was in the office of the London Times that in
November, 1914, the first steam press, a two
cylinder machine, was put up, and by hard
work they managed to make it thrOw off
twelve hundred impressions an hour, What
change in the facilities for multiplying i'm
| nressinna hetwAnn that time and this