Year: 1867

The Alden MaGnlner


There are two things which, hitherto,
it has been held could not be done by
machinery-to think and to set type
Perhaps there is quite mischief enough
done ut the former task with the f;lcili-
ties nature has provided us, without ask
ing for more. If al editor or 4 parson
could put a quire Of paper under his pill
! low or in lis hat, and find, after due and
patient waiting, that his editorials or his
sermons were written thereon ready for
the printer, it would be qucs TONED
/, whether the world would he benfited
thereby, as the world probably, has its
thinking done for it now quite as fast
as is good for it. But there is no qucs-
tion of the usefulness Of printing, and la
bor saving. machinery III that art as in
any other. By the Alden Machine this
great end is at length, we believe, gained.


Many of our readers Fave doubtless
heard of it for t. last halfdozen years.
From its first germ in the brain Of T'lmo-
thy Alden, once a comp0sitor i'll this
office, it has grown, during that period,
through numberless difficulties, and over
formidable obstacles, to the present fact.
That great fact is that hour after hour,
day after day, the machine, in the hands
of skillful workman, will set type rap
idly, correctly and unintcrruptedly.-
Put to practical work, set, so to speak
to earn its own living, we believe that
in one weeks time it would do, with two
attendants, the work i'll the office Of a
daily newspaper of at least four men in
any given number of hours The practi-
cal printer Will readily understand, and
even the impractical public can comprc-
hend that this if true must needs make
an era i'll the art of nrintil g. The work
of human muscles and nerves is multi
piled by an ingenious complication OF
iron and steel and, the result muSt he, as
it always is i'll the introduction of labor
saving machinery, that perfection and
increased advantage follow use, and that
there will be not fewer printers but more
and cheaper printing. The field of labor
is enlarged; TO meet the new demand a
new branch of industry Is created, and
| to the old hand-work, not always the
most clcvating to the craftsman, is added
brain-work which makes a better man of
him. Though Mr. Alden did not live to
see the practical realization, of his idea,
the machine is now essentially as he left
| it, changed only in the correction of such
| inlpcrtection Of details as are always ard
inevitably developed in practical working
Of all new machinery. His name is i'm
mortal as the creator of Il new Industry
and the benctactOr Of an old one


We have had the Alden Machine under
cIcse and watchful observance in this
building for many months, and we have
seen it put, under very great diSadvan-
tagcs, TO the severest tests. 1t is beau
tiful piece Of mechanism, apparently cX-
cccdingly complicated and vet exceed
in9ly simple The problem the inventor
set himself to solve was to take a desig


mated letter from 4 certain point and de-
| liver its at the command of Il touch upon
a key, at another This is one motion
the setting. The second is to take up
type without any order than that given
by a ''nick" on the type, and drop it at
another given point-and this is its dis
tribution. Both these operations go on
at one and the same time. We attempt
no detailed description, meaning only to
explain that the machine, by certain hicks
upon the body of the type, by certain
adjustments to those hicks, and the con-
stant multiplication Of all its parts, is
enabled to set type by direction Of the
touch upon the alphabetical keys, to dis
tribute type at the same time, and to do
both with an accuracy as unerring rs the
hand and eye Of the operator can direct,
and with a degree of rapidity even now
six times as great as that Of the human
type-setter. Bat beside the operator
there must be another workman to Gus
tify" the type delivered, and when both
these are skilled workmen OF workwo-
men, it needs practice only to enable them
to do the work of six typc-setters. In
other words, it is proved beyond perad-
venture that the machine can set 1000
ems per hour, with one operator and one
''justifier." To set 660 ems per hour is
the task tf an ordinary type-setter at the
case. After careful and patient observa-
ton, we can see no reason why this
amount of work may not be the practical
result of the machines labor from years
end to years end. Of course it must
have skillful operators, and in its contin-
uous rse it is not impossible that in some
minute details corrections and improve
ments are yet to be made, as the case is
III All new machines. But patient and
candid trial, it seems to us, is all that is
necessary to put them, as fast as they
can be manufactured, into our book and
newspaper offices to do that work In
which, since the invention of printing,
there has been no advance The almost