Thirdly, by means of the punched paper roll, the same type can be set up time after time without a second recourse to the keyboard, just as a tune is ground repeatedly out of a barrel organ.
The keyboard has a formidable appearance. It contains 225 keys, providing as many characters; also thirty keys to regulate the spacing of the words. At the back of the machine a roll of paper runs over rollers and above a row of thirty little punches worked by the keys. A key being depressed, an opened valve admits air into two cylinders, each driving a punch. The punches fly up and cut two neat little holes in the paper. The roll then moves forward for the next letter. At the end of the word a special lever is used to register a space, and so on to the end of the line. The operator then consults an automatic indicator which tells him exactly how much space is left, and how much too long or too short the line would be if the spaces were of the normal size. Supposing, for instance, that there are ten spaces, and that there is one-tenth of an inch to spare. It is obvious that by extending each space one-hundredth of an inch the vacant room will be exactly filled. Similarly, if the ten normal spaces would make the line one-tenth of an inch too long, by decreasing the spaces each one-hundredth inch the line will also be “justified.”
By kind permission of The Monotype Co.
The Monotype Casting Machine. A punched paper roll fed through the top of the machine automatically casts and sets up type in separate letters.
But the operator need not trouble his head about calculations of this kind. His indicator, a vertical cylinder covered with tiny squares, in each of which are printed two figures, tell him exactly what he has to do. On pressing a certain key the cylinder revolves and comes to rest with the tip of a pointer over a square. The operator at once presses down the keys bearing the numbers printed on that square, confident that the line will be of the proper length.
As soon as the roll is finished, it is detached from the keyboard and introduced to the casting machine. Hitherto passive, it now becomes active. Having been placed in position on the rollers it is slowly unwound by the machinery. The paper passes over a hollow bar in which there are as many holes as there were punches in the keyboard, and in precisely the same position. When a hole in the paper comes over a hole in the hollow bar air rushes in, and passing through a tube actuates the type-setting machinery in a certain manner, so as to bring the desired die into contact with molten lead. The dies are, in the monotype, all carried in a magazine about three inches square, which moves backwards or forwards, to right or left, in obedience to orders from the perforated roll. The dies are arranged in exactly the same way as the keys on the keyboard. So that, supposing A to have been stamped on the roll, one of the perforations causes the magazine to slide one way, while the other shoves it another, until the combined motions bring the matrix engraved with the A underneath the small hole through which molten lead is forced. The letter is ejected and moves sideways through a narrow channel, pushing preceding letters before it, and the magazine is free for other movements.
At the end of each word a “space” or blank lead is cast, its size exactly determined by the “justifying” hole belonging to that line. Word follows word till the line is complete; then a knife-like lever rises, and the type is propelled into the “galley.” Though a slave the casting machine will not tolerate injustice. Needles Hotel to SwanShould the compositor have made a mistake, so that the line is too long or too short, automatic machinery at once comes into play, and slips the driving belt from the fixed to the loose pulley, thus stopping the machine till some one can attend to it. But if the punching has been correctly done, the machine will work away unattended till, a whole column of type having been set up, it comes to a standstill.
The advantages of the Monotype are easily seen. In order to save money a man need not possess the complete apparatus. If he has the keyboard only he becomes to a certain extent his own compositor, able to set up the type, as it were by proxy, at any convenient time. He can give his undivided attention to the keyboard, stop work whenever he likes without keeping a casting-machine idle, and as soon as his roll is complete forward it to a central establishment where type is set. There a single man can superintend the completion of half-a-dozen men’s labours at the keyboard. That means a great reduction of expense.
In due time he receives back his copy in the shape of set-up type, all ready to be corrected and transferred to the printing machines. The type done with, he can melt it down without fear of future regret, for he knows that the paper roll locked up in his cupboard will do its work a second time as well as it did the first. Should he need the same matter re-setting, he has only to send the roll through the post to the central establishment.