The next great achievement was put in operation in a New York pressroom in 1885. That was the double supplement press, which in reality combines two presses in one. It was the first press to insert supplement sheets automatically, and it was the first press to print from two rolls of paper, one roll being placed at right angles to the main roll. As the name of the press implies, from the secondary roll the supplements are printed at the same time that the main part of the paper is being printed from the other roll. And by means of what to the ordinary man seems a miraculous contrivance, but which to the initiated in the mysteries of mechanics is no doubt very simple, the supplement is automatically inset and pasted into the main paper before reaching the fly, and dropped out folded ready for the newsdealer.
From this press has been evolved the superb printing machine which, in recent years, has astonished the world. On it can be printed eight-, ten-, or twelve-page papers at a running speed of 24,000 an hour, or 400 a minute, and whether eight, ten, or twelve pages are printed they all come out with the supplements inset and the paper pasted and folded. From this press was developed the next triumph, the quadruple press. Marvelous machines these quadruple presses are, and it seemed impossible that any press could be built for many years to come that would beat them.
The printing business stood amazed, awe-stricken at the sight of so many papers being turned out each hour. And before the amazement had subsided there came forth the machine which is destined to go down in history as one of the great achievements in mechanics of the nineteenth century,—the sextuple press, manufactured by Hoe & Co., which has brought forth as many wonderful improvements as any mechanical concern in the world.
Although it is impossible to explain in language comprehensible to the man who is not an engineer how this monarch among printing presses does its work at a rate of speed which is well-nigh incredible and outstrips the flight of imagination itself, yet it is possible to convey an idea of what the extent of the work is.
FIRST PERFECTING PRESS.
This machine will print, fold, paste, and deliver 90,000 of a four-page paper or six-page newspaper in one hour. It will require some figuring to convey an adequate idea of how fast that is, for, as a matter of fact, it is faster than a man can think, and that is why I say that the speed of the machine outstrips the flight of imagination.
Ninety thousand copies an hour is equivalent to fifteen hundred copies a minute, and fifteen hundred copies a minute means twenty-five copies per second!
Now take out your watch, and while the second hand is passing from one second to another try to grasp the idea that in all that brief interval of time twenty-five six-page newspapers have been printed. You can’t do it. It is faster than you can think.
And yet in that second those twenty-five papers are not only printed, but the inside sheets are automatically pasted in, and the twenty-five papers are all cut and folded ready for delivery to the newsdealers. Is there anything more marvelous than that recorded in the “Arabian Nights”? Who said that there are no miracles in this nineteenth century? Why, if old Gutenberg,—peace to his soul,—or Faust, or Caxton, or even our own Benjamin Franklin had seen anything of the sort, they would have sworn that it was either a miracle or the work of the supernatural, with the chances in favor of the latter.