"I'm glad you came," said Uncle Francis as he greeted her. "I should think every man and woman in the United States would be interested in this new kind of printing press. Do you know, it will bring down the price of a paper from a nickel to three cents! They have just begun to print the afternoon edition. Shall we go now to see the new Hoe rotary perfecting press? It is the most wonderful thing in printing that has ever been invented since Gutenberg invented movable type more than four hundred years ago. It seems as though it must mark the limit in fast printing, but who knows? Surely Gutenberg and Faust would have thought our old press with the pages of type on a stationary flat bed over which rollers and paper passed, the limit of wonders. Come and see this new press eat up the paper!"
The Earliest Printers at Work
They soon stood before a great throbbing monster, a mystery of wheels within wheels and of gleaming steel. At one end was a huge roll of white paper; at the other was an unceasing stream of newspapers. Jimmie watched in wide-eyed wonder. He heard his uncle say that the huge roll, or web, of white paper was being fed into one end of the press, was being printed on both sides, the newspaper sheets were being cut apart, folded, and finally delivered, counted, at the other end of the press. How could it be done!
"Well, what do you think of it all?" asked Uncle Francis, turning to Jimmie.
Jimmie hardly took his fascinated gaze from the great whirring monster.
"It's great! It's a hundred times more wonderful than I thought it would be! Now that I've seen what this press can do I think I shall run one of these instead of being an editor."
His uncle laughed. "All right," he said; "you see how this runs, do you?"
"Not all of it," admitted Jimmie.
"Probably the type part bothers you," said his uncle, "because you are accustomed to seeing the type in a flat steel frame, or chase, as we call it. Here it is on the outside of one of those huge rollers, or cylinders, as we call them. Do you see it?"