The Daily Newspaper: The History of Its Production and Distibution

by Anonymous

In the recent number of an English religious paper a somewhat similar mistake took place, the report of a meeting for the conversion of the Jews and an item on the advantages of phosphates as manure being pretty well shaken up together.

The matter all being properly placed in the "turtles," of which there are eight for the Daily Witness, the latter are "locked up" by means of screws at the ends, by tightening which pressure is brought to bear on all sides of the matter, and it becomes as one mass, so solid that it would not fall to pieces though it fell from one floor to another. It will be noticed that a section of the turtle forms the arc of a circle, while the sides of the type are parallel. How to make the matter close firmly under these circumstances was the subject of much study. One inventor made his type wedge-shaped, but that did not answer, and the difficulty was at length overcome by making the rules which divide the columns so much larger towards the top than the bottom that the column rule sits into the arch of types after the same fashion as a keystone in masonry.

The "turtles," when being made up, are placed on stands made for the purpose, which are wheeled along to the hoist and lowered to the press room.

The hoist used in the Witness office has some peculiarities which distinguish it from others. Where so many young people were working together, it was considered unsafe to have a a hole in the floor with no protection. The mechanical manager, Mr. John Beatty, therefore set his mind to work to invent attachments whereby the hoist would automatically open and close, as required. He was entirely successful, and now the machinery is so arranged that whenever the hoist is at any particular flat the gate opposite it is raised so that free access may be had to the platform; at all other times the gate is closed, so that no one can fall into what is, too often, little more than a man-trap.

Descending with the "turtles" to the ground floor, we arrive at the pressroom, where the forms are hoisted on to one of Hoe's mammoth eight-cylinder rotary presses. The turtles are fastened, or "locked," on to an immense cylinder and form a portion of its circumference, the rest of its surface being used for distributing the ink. Surrounding this cylinder, and acting in conjunction with it, are eight other cylinders, very much smaller than the one bearing the type. At each of them stands a man, whose duty it is to "feed" the press—that is, place the sheets, one by one, so that at the proper time they will be clutched by the automatic fingers by which they are drawn around the smaller cylinder, at the same time being pressed by the one bearing the type, so that a clear impression is made. The sheets are then carried away by means of tapes, and deposited evenly on tables at the rear of the press. This machine will print sixteen thousand copies an hour, and is often run beyond that speed in the Witness office. Its catalogue price is thirty thousand dollars.

A word may be said about the progress of the printing press towards perfection. The changes have all been from direct or reciprocating to rotary or revolving motion. At first the type was inked by "ink balls," and the paper was pressed on it by a flat platen brought down upon it with pressure by means of a spring or screw. Inking is now invariably done by rollers, but the direct action of a flat platen pressing against a flat bed is still preserved, not only in all the smaller and simpler presses, but in those which do the very finest work. The first great step towards increased speed was made when the paper was pressed against the type by a cylinder or drum. This is the character of most newspaper presses, and of a good number in the Witness pressroom. In these presses the types still travel backwards and forwards on a flat bed, which has to stop and reverse its motion twice for every impression. The next step in advance was that which placed the types also on a cylinder, so that there might be for them only one continuous motion round and round in one direction. This is illustrated by the large rotary presses in the picture of the pressroom, one of which, the four-cylinder, has just been removed to make way for presses adapted to finer magazine work. There is still in the rotary press the necessity of feeding by hand. A number of machines have been invented to feed themselves from a roll of paper, thus introducing another rotary motion, and to "deliver" the paper by still another rotary process. None of these presses, so far, have come to such perfection as to print from type as well and as fast as the great rotary press now used by the Witness, but they are constantly improving in construction. Such presses have, of course, to print one side of the paper and then the other before the sheet leaves the press, and would have to deliver these perfected sheets as fast from one exit as the rotary does from eight or ten. It is in these points where the difficulty is found, as one side has to be printed before the ink is dry on the other, and the rapid disposal of the finished papers requires very ingenious machinery. There are further improvements still in the future. We can imagine lithography completely supplanting type or stereotype printing,—as it has begun to do,—the impression of the type being transferred to stone, or some other lithographic surface. If lithographic surfaces could be made cylindrical they could, being smooth, work against each other, and so print both sides of the paper at the same time. The whole press would thus consist of two impression rollers and two more to ink them going round just as fast as the chemical character of the ink would permit. The Witness has had to purchase a new machine about every five years to keep up with the times, and it is not probable that it will be otherwise in the future.

HOISTING "TURTLE" ON THE PRESS.

As the sheets are printed they are gathered from each of the eight receiving tables and carried off to the folding machines, of which there are four on the same flat. These are unable to do all the work as quickly as required, so that some are sent up to the bindery above, and folded by hand.