contributed so many prominent figures to the history and progress of
this country as the composing-room. They have filled important places
in journalism, politics, Congress, state legislatures, the army and
navy, and the world of literature.
Horace Greeley, the founder of the New York “Tribune,”—writer,
statesman, and man of affairs,—is one of the notable figures of the
present century, who laid the foundation of his career at a case of
type.
Schuyler Colfax, who became Vice-President of the United States in
1869, passed the early years of his life setting type.
And, strange to say, these two men, when the presidential chair seemed
a possible realization of their ambition, were opposed by men of their
craft simply because they had seemed to run so far above the “stick”
and “rule.”
Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, once Secretary of War, United States
senator, representative of the United States abroad, and for many years
political master of his great State, was proud to say that he had begun
his career as a type-setter in a country printing-office. It is worth
while noticing that this printer-politician’s life covered nearly
a century of existence. His life spanned every president from John
Adams in 1799 to Benjamin Harrison in 1889, while his active political
control of Pennsylvania covered a period of sixty-five years,—a record
made by only one man within the history of the United States.
Every state in the Union has contributed to history its quota of
printer-statesmen, printer-authors, and printer-journalists. How many
of such there have been in this nineteenth century would be beyond
ordinary research to ascertain. But printers—compositors—can refer
with just pride to the fact that in all the advanced walks of life are
to be found men who have been members of the guild.
The setting of type by hand prevailed universally until as late
as 1880. That may be put down as the period when there came into
anything like general use the machines for type composition, although
experiments in that direction had been going on for sixty years.
As early as 1820, printers realized that machinery eventually must
be brought into play for composing type. But how to do it was the
scientific as well as mechanical problem. It was argued that the
machine must be so constructed as to pick up the type, uniformly
distribute the space between the words, and “justify” the lines, that
is, make them the exact width.
“It is beyond the range of possibility,” suggested the printer.
“Mechanism never can be applied to art. The great Benjamin Franklin
would have discovered the way to make such a thing possible, if it were
possible—which is impossible.”
And the scientific electric discovery made by Benjamin Franklin in the
eighteenth century is, at the close of the nineteenth, the motive-power
used for driving the machines for type composition,—the seemingly
impossible has reached the stage of possibility.
[Illustration: OCTUPLE STEREOTYPE PERFECTING PRESS AND FOLDER.
(Capacity, 96,000 impressions per hour.)]
Dr. William Church, of Connecticut, produced a machine looking to
machine type-composition in 1820. It did not come into use, although
he spent large sums of money on it, and devoted a vast amount of
energy toward having it taken up both in this country and in England.
At the Paris Exhibition in 1835 there were exhibited several machines
of this sort, one of which—the patent of Christian Sörensen, of
Copenhagen—was used upon a daily paper issued during the exhibition.
In 1871, at the International Exhibition in London, there was shown
a machine possessing peculiar features. It used a perforated ribbon,
through the medium of which types were worked into position. The
machine was cumbersome, complicated, and expensive, and could not be
brought into anything like general usage. In 1875 M. Delcambre, of
Paris, after twenty years’ work produced a machine in New York. It
had the same objections as the others. While this machine could do as
much as the labor of three men by hand, it required a man to operate,
another man to place the set type in lines, steam to keep it in motion,
and a big cost to construct.
[Illustration: LINOTYPE (TYPE-SETTING) MACHINE (FRONT VIEW).]
Up to this period, all the experiments had shown the want of something
which would obviate the presence of a man to make the lines of the
proper length and with equal spacing between the words. All the
machines which were anything near available picked up and placed in
position separate types. At the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, in
Philadelphia, there were shown machines which used brass dies and cast
a line of type. These seemed to possess the element for successful
use, and the outcome was the production of the machine which is now in
use in all the big newspaper offices in this country—the “Mergenthaler
Linotype.” Practically it has driven all the other machines out of use,
but how long it will hold sway is a question. Already men of genius are
experimenting with two objects in view,—increase of speed, decrease of
cost,—and it is fair to presume that before the twentieth century has
gone very far into history these two objects will have been attained.
The linotype, as here shown, has the appearance of a heavy and
cumbersome piece of machinery. It actually is so only when there are
several of them placed in line—then they give to a composing-room
the appearance of a machine shop. This machine, instead of producing
single type of the ordinary character, casts type-metal bars or slugs,
each complete in one piece, and having on the upper edge, properly
justified, the type characters to print a line.
These slugs present the appearance of composed lines of type, and serve
the same purpose, and for this reason are called “linotypes.” The
linotypes are produced and assembled automatically in a galley, side
by side, in proper order, so that they constitute a “form,” answering
the same purposes and used in the same manner as the ordinary “forms”
consisting of single types.
After being used, the linotypes instead of being, like type forms,
distributed, are thrown into a metal pot of the machine to be recast
into new forms.
The machine contains, as its fundamental elements, several hundred
brass matrices. Each matrix consists of a flat plate having in one
edge a female letter, or matrix proper, and in the upper end a series
of teeth, which are used for distributing to their proper places in
the magazine matrices containing different letters. There are in
the machine a number of matrices of each letter, and also matrices
representing special characters, and spaces or quads of definite
thickness for use in tabular and other work of a complicated nature.
The machine is so organized that on manipulating the finger-keys it
will select matrices in the order in which their characters are to
appear in print, and assemble them side by side with wedge-shaped
spaces at suitable points in the line.
This composed line forms a line matrix, or in other words a line of
female type, adapted to produce a line of raised printing type on a
slug, which may be forced into or against the matrix characters. After
the matrix line is composed it is automatically transferred to the face
of the mold, into which molten metal is delivered to produce the slug
or linotype, after which the matrices are distributed or returned to
the magazine to be again composed in new relations for succeeding lines.
These operations are performed by mechanism, as shown in the outline
here presented.
_A_ is an inclined fixed magazine, containing channels in which the
assorted matrices are stored, and through which they slide, entering
at the top and escaping at the foot, one at a time. Each channel is
provided at the lower end with an escapement device, _B_, connected
by a rod, _C_, with a finger character of the matrices in the
corresponding channel. There is a key for each character, and also
keys for quads stored in the magazine. The keys are actuated by the
operator in the order in which their letters are to appear in print.
As a key is depressed, it operates the corresponding escapement, _B_,
which allows a matrix to fall out of the magazine through one of the
channels, _E_, to the inclined traveling belt, _F_, which serves to
carry the matrices down in succession into the assembler stick, _G_,
in which they are stored side by side. A box, _H_, contains a number
of elongated spaces, _I_, and a discharging device connecting with
a finger-key bar, _J_, by which the spaces are permitted to fall
into the line of matrices at the proper points during composition.
It will be perceived that the operation of the various keys results
in the selection of the matrices and spaces, and their collection in
assembler, _G_, until it contains all the characters to be represented
by one line of print. After the matrix line is thus composed it is
transferred, as indicated by the dotted lines, to the front of a mold
or slot extending through a mold wheel, _K_, from front to rear. This
mold is of the exact size and shape of the slug required. The matrix
line is pressed tightly against, and closed in front of, the mold for
the time being, and the characters, or matrices proper, face the mold
cell or space. While the line is in place in front of the mold, the
wedge spaces are pushed up through the line, and in this manner exact
and instantaneous “justification” is secured. Behind the mold there is
a melting pot, _M_, heated by a flame from a gas burner, and containing
a quantity of molten metal. The pot has a perforated mouth arranged to
fit against and close the rear side of the mold, and contains a jump
plunger, mechanically actuated.
[Illustration: OUTLINE OF TYPE-SETTING MACHINE.]
After the matrix line is in place, the plunger falls and forces metal
through the pot mouth into the mold, against and into the characters of
the matrix line. The metal instantly solidifies in the mold, forming
the slug or linotype, having on its edge raised type characters formed
by the matrices. The mold wheel next makes a partial revolution,
turning the mold from the original horizontal to a vertical position
in front of the ejector, which then advances from the rear through the
mold, pushing the slug out of the latter into the receiving galley, at
the front.
A vibrating arm advances the slugs laterally in the galley, and thus
assembles them side by side in column or page-form ready for use. In
order to insure absolute accuracy in the height and thickness of the
slugs, knives are arranged to act upon them during their course to the
galley.
After the matrices in the line have served their purpose in front of
the mold, they are returned to the magazine to be again discharged and
used in the following manner. The line is lifted from the mold and
shifted laterally until the teeth at the top engage the teeth of bar,
_R_. This bar then rises as shown by dotted lines, lifting the matrices
to the distributor at the top of the machine, but leaving the spaces,
_I_, behind to be shifted laterally to the magazine or holder, _H_,
from which they were discharged. Each matrix has distributor teeth
in its top, arranged in a special order or number, according to the
character it contains. In other words, a matrix containing any given
character differs in the number or relation of its teeth from a matrix
containing any other character. This difference is relied upon to
secure proper distribution. A distributor-bar, _T_, in a single piece,
is fixed horizontally over the upper end of the magazine, and is formed
with longitudinal ribs or teeth, adapted to engage the teeth of the
matrices and hold the latter in suspension as they are carried along
the bar over the mouths or entrances of the channels.
The teeth of the bar are cut away to vary their number or arrangement
at different points in its length, so that there is a special
arrangement over the mouth of each channel. The matrices are pushed
upon the bar at the end, and made to slide slowly along it while
suspended therefrom. Each matrix remains in engagement, and travels
over the mouth of the channels, until it arrives at the required point,
where, for the first time, its teeth bear such relation to those of the
bar that it is permitted to disengage and fall into its channel.
The travel of the matrices is secured by longitudinal screws, which
lie below the bar in position to engage the edges of the matrices. The
matrices pursue a circulatory course through the machine, starting
from the bottom of the magazine and passing thence to the line being
composed, thence to the mold, and finally back to the top of the
magazine. This circulation permits the operations of composing one
line, casting a second, and distributing a third, to be carried on
concurrently, and enables the machine to run at a speed exceeding that
at which any operator can finger the keys.
One half horse power is generally used in driving a machine. About
five square feet is the space occupied by the machine; it weighs 1925
pounds, and consumes about fifteen feet of illuminating gas each hour
to heat the metal pot. Each machine will do complete work equal to that
of five men by hand. The simplicity of the machine bears a striking
resemblance to the typewriter, and this is operated successfully by
young girls. When the matter set by the machine is placed together, the
page presents a surface equal to an entire new set of type, or, as the
printers say, “We take on an entire new dress every day.”
That is a production of the nineteenth century. How commonplace it will
appear when the achievements of the twentieth century are placed on
record.
III. EVENTS AS THEY OCCUR.
When the nineteenth century opened, great events were occurring in
the world. Napoleon Bonaparte was the central figure in the eye of
Europe. He had, but a few years previously (1797), gone through the
most brilliant campaign known. He had crossed the Alps, defeated the
Austrians at Montenotte and Millesimo, defeated the Sardinians at Ceva
and Mondovi, and conquered Lombardy,—all in a few weeks. The year
following he had conquered Egypt, and in 1800 had become the first
consul and the ruler of France, to be declared Emperor four years later.
Then followed, in rapid succession, the events which caused the world
to look upon Napoleon as the probable coming ruler of the universe. It
was in 1805 that he began the war of aggrandizement. He crossed the
Rhine, compelling the Austrian army to surrender at Ulm; he entered
Vienna and routed the Russian and Austrian armies at Austerlitz.
This was followed by his move to make himself master of Southern and
Central Europe. He established his brother Joseph as King of Naples;
his brother Louis as King of Holland; his stepson Eugene as Viceroy of
Italy; and his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, as Grand Duke of Berg.
The following year he defeated the Prussians and entered Berlin.
It was not until his abdication at Fontainebleau, in 1814, that Europe
and America breathed freely. His final overthrow at Waterloo in 1815
removed him from the stage as an active participant in the world’s
history of the nineteenth century.
In the United States, the close of the eighteenth century was marked by
the death of Washington, while 1800, 1801, 1802 saw us make a treaty
of peace with France, remove the national capital from Philadelphia to
Washington, D. C., declare war against Tripoli, purchase Louisiana from
France, and enter upon the disputes with Great Britain which culminated
in a declaration of war with the mother country, in June of 1812.
While these events at home and abroad were making history, long periods
of time elapsed between their occurrence and their being given to the
people. There was no telegraphic communication which flashed messages
around the globe. It was a wait until the mails brought the news. Two
months, probably, elapsed after the battle of Waterloo ere this country
was furnished with the story which meant so much to the peace of Europe.
What a change in this respect was wrought between the downfall of
Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815 and the downfall of his nephew, Louis
Napoleon, in 1870! On the fateful second of September, 1870, when the
Emperor of France, Napoleon III., surrendered to the Emperor William
of Prussia, on the field of Sedan, the news was flashed to America in
less than two hours. On that hot, sultry day eager crowds surrounded
the bulletin boards of the newspapers, on which were displayed the
facts connected with the overthrow of the Napoleonic dynasty. The
difference in time made it possible for us here to know all that had
been done by the two emperors and by Bismarck an hour ahead of their
actual happening. For days before that the crowds had surged around
the newspaper offices, for days afterward they did the same, and facts
were given with a rapidity which showed how wonderful had been the
scientific stride between 1815 and 1870.
Had any one in 1815 predicted the possibility of such scenes, he
would have been put down as a fit subject for a writ of _de lunatico
inquirendo_. Such, too, would have been the comment on the one who then
would have suggested the likelihood of a newspaper in this country
reaching a circulation of a million copies daily,—and yet such has
become an accomplished fact.
At the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century there had
been no practical advance in the rapid transmission of news. This
was the period when the press lacked the facility to rapidly furnish
the people with the events which were occurring in all directions.
Newspapers still depended upon the mails. Home events were many weeks
reaching sections remote from their happening. In this respect there
had been some little improvement at the close of the first half of
the century. That was the time when the electrical current was being
brought into operation in the transmission of signals from which
messages were being recorded, and these were being utilized for the
sending of information at short distances. Scientific men were even
talking of the possibility of connecting distant points on the coast,
and whispering their hope for an Atlantic cable. In 1858 that wonderful
event came to pass. The old world and the new were connected by cable
from Valencia Bay, in Ireland, to Newfoundland, in North America,
and messages of greeting passed between Queen Victoria and President
Buchanan. The break which followed soon after the opening of this cable
stimulated men of genius and men of capital to further efforts, and the
governments of the United States and Great Britain came forward with
generous aid. The laying of the Atlantic cable by the Great Eastern
in 1864, and its successful operation in 1866, opened the doors for
the possibilities of the press of to-day, and the realization of such
scenes as were witnessed in this country on September 2, 1870.
Between that memorable year, 1866, and this, 1899, how wonderful has
been the advance in the transmission of information from all quarters
of the globe. From the Transvaal Republic, in South Africa; from the
desert home of the Dervish in the Soudan; from the domain of Turkey’s
Sultan, in Armenia; from the Holy Land; from the Oriental empires
of China and Japan; from the snow-clad land of the Czar in Siberia;
from the Bosphorus to the English Channel; from Valencia across the
Atlantic; from Victoria Land in North America to Patagonia in South
America; from Maine to Mexico; from the Atlantic to the Pacific; there
are each day transmitted all occurrences of interest transpiring,—and
these encompass peace and war, joy and sorrow, science and art,
education and trade,—events which arouse the passions and quicken the
pulse of humanity.
This is done through the medium of an organization known as the
Associated Press. This wonderful combination has nearly forty thousand
miles of wire from the different telegraph companies, for which there
is paid a fixed price per mile. This, however, does not include its
cable service, the charges for which are according to the number of
words transmitted. The service of this organization costs a million and
a half a year, divided among several hundred of the great newspapers
of the United States. During the recent conflict between Spain and the
United States its expenditure for war news alone was nearly $500,000.
This can readily be understood when the reader is informed that the
cable rate from Manila was $2.37 a word. Thus, a dispatch filling less
than a quarter of a column of the average daily paper cost $1000. The
rate from Porto Rico, at the outbreak of hostilities, was $1.90 a word,
and it often happened that a single dispatch covering the movements
of a body of troops in that island, with possibly a pen picture of a
skirmish with the Spaniards, would cost $2000 in gold. The Santiago
toll was $1.10 a word; and whole pages of newspapers were printed at
that rate.
What a gigantic institution it has become for the rapid dissemination
of news events!
In that war between Spain and the United States, General Toral, the
Spanish commander, surrendered Santiago on July 14, at 2.15 o’clock
in the afternoon. At 2.25 o’clock the message announcing the fact was
received in Philadelphia. On the 12th of August following, at 4.23
o’clock in the afternoon, the Peace Protocol was signed in Washington
by the French Ambassador Cambon and Secretary of State Day, and at
4.27 o’clock—four minutes later—the information was in the New York
office of the Associated Press. Hundreds of such instances of this
rapid transmission of news could be recorded in this last year of the
nineteenth century,—facts never even dreamed of when Benjamin Franklin
chained the electric current in the closing years of the eighteenth
century.
The journey of a piece of news from the far East to the far West is
something worth noting. The trip covers thousands of miles out of a
direct route. As for instance, when Admiral Dewey annihilated the
Spanish fleet in the Bay of Manila, on May 1, 1898, the fact was cabled
to Hong Kong, China. There an operator transmitted it northward to
Helampo in Russia, right on the border line of Manchooria, from which
place it was sent across Russia to Tomsk, thence to St. Petersburg.
From the Russian capital it zigzagged to Berne, in Switzerland;
thence to Paris; thence across the channel to Penzance, and finally
to Valencia, to be put on the cable for America. In two hours from
the time the operator in Hong Kong started his dispatch, it was being
hurried across the American continent—north, west, east, south—for
distribution in the newspaper offices.
When a party of Mohammedans attacked a Christian mission in Calcutta,
a telegraph operator dispatched the news to Bombay, whence it was
transmitted to Aden. The next point reached was Suez, from which it was
sent to Malta. It was next sent to Lisbon. From there it was given to
Paris. From Malta it was also cabled to Penzance, thence to Valencia,
and finally to the United States.
When that Manila piece of news from Admiral Dewey reached the Pacific
coast in the United States, the date of its being started was yet
several hours behind the time of its arrival. The attack on the Spanish
fleet was made on Sunday, May 1, Manila time. The fact was not sent out
by Dewey until the following morning, May 2 (still Manila time). It was
started on its westward course that morning (May 2) at ten o’clock. By
the route taken to Valencia with the relays, two hours were consumed.
This brought it to London about three o’clock on that morning of May 2,
owing to the difference in time. Traveling westward across the Atlantic
ocean in advance of the sun, it reached New York about ten o’clock in
the night of May 1. But little time was lost in retransmission to the
Pacific coast, which point it reached about six o’clock on that Sunday
evening of May 1—fourteen hours previous, by the day of the month, to
its being started from Manila.