PLATE XV.
THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE.
Fig. 148.—Newspaper Printing-Room, with Walter Machines.
PRINTING MACHINES.
A volume might be filled with descriptions of the machines which in every department of industry have taken the place of slow and laborious manual labour. But if even we selected only such machines as from the beautiful mechanical principles involved in their action, or from their effects in cheapening for everybody the necessaries and comforts of life, might be considered of universal interest, the limits of the space we can afford for this class of inventions would be far exceeded. The machines for spinning, for weaving fabrics, for preparing articles of food, are in themselves worthy of attention; then there is a little machine which in almost every household has superseded one of the most primitive kinds of hand-work, and that is the sewing machine. But all these we must pass over, and confine our descriptions of special machines to a class in which the interest is of a still more general and higher character, since their effect in promoting the intellectual progress of mankind is universally acknowledged. We need hardly say that we allude to Printing Presses, and if we add a few lines on printing machines other than those which have given us cheap literature, it is because these other machines also have contributed to the general culture by giving us cheap decorative art, and in their general principles they are so much akin to the former that but little additional description is necessary.
LETTERPRESS PRINTING.
The manner in which the youthful assistants of printers came to receive their technical appellation of “devils” has been the subject of many ingenious explanations. One of these is to the effect that the earlier productions of the press, having imitated the manuscript characters, the uninitiated supposed the impressions were produced by hand-copying, and in consequence of their rapid production and exact conformity with each other, it was thought that some diabolical agency must have been invoked. Another story relates that one of Caxton’s first assistants was a negro boy, who of course soon became identified in the popular mind with an imp from the nether world. A very innocent explanation is put forward in another tale, relating that one of the first English printers had in his employment a boy of the name of De Ville, or Deville, which name was soon corrupted into the now familiar title, and became the inheritance of this youth’s successors in the craft. Perhaps a more probable and natural explanation might be found in the personal appearance which the apprentices must have presented, with hands, and no doubt faces also, smeared over with the black ink which it was their duty to manipulate. For the ink was formerly always laid upon large round pads or balls of leather, stuffed with wool. When these balls, Fig. [149], which were, perhaps, about 12 in. in diameter, had received a charge of ink, the apprentice dabbed the one against the other, working them with a twisting motion, and after having obtained a uniform distribution of the ink on their surfaces with many dexterous flourishes, he applied them to the face of the types with both hands, until all the letters were completely and evenly charged. The operation was very troublesome, and much practice was required before the necessary skill was obtained, while it was always a most difficult matter to keep the balls in good working condition.
Fig. 149.—Inking Balls.
