Type-setting by Machinery.—Type-casting is quite different from machine type-setting. Before contrasting type-casting with ordinary hand type-setting, it may clear the way to outline the principle of machine type-setting.
The type-setting machine has a reservoir of type, instead of a magazine of matrices as in the casting-machine; but, unlike the matrices, which return to their magazine the moment a line is cast from them, the type must go the whole way to the printing-press. Otherwise, the action of the type-setting machine is somewhat similar to that of the casting-machine. The type-setting machine is also worked by an operator at a key-board. When the operator touches a key, a type is released, just as a matrix is in the casting-machine, and slides into a receiver, where it is joined by other successive letters until words and lines are formed. As type is directly used, there is no furnace or melting-pot about the machine. This is the only advantage it has over the casting-machine, while compared with the latter it has serious drawbacks.
The type-setting machine seems to be a practical success, and an improvement on type-setting by hand; but, if for two reasons only, it is doomed to be superseded by the casting-machine. 1. It requires a heavy stock of type instead of a few matrices. 2. At least two attendants are required to each machine, one to operate the key-board, the other to justify the lines, attend to corrections and superintend matters generally, and to distribute the type again. Still, the business manager of the office in which the New York Forum is printed, informed me that through their use he is saving $1,700 a year in the setting of that monthly magazine, which does not require in a year as much composition as a daily paper in a month.
Comparison with Type-setting by Hand.—In any considerable quantity of straight reading matter, type-casting machines as compared with hand composition should, if working successfully, effect a saving of from one fourth to one third the cost of setting. Moreover, the setting is better. Perhaps this contention is best illustrated by figures. Those which I propose to give are based on the conditions prevailing in Canadian newspaper offices. Let us suppose an office in which one hundred and twenty thousand ems of straight reading matter are set per day in minion type. To fix ideas, we may describe this roughly as equal to about twenty-five ordinary newspaper columns. Many of the larger city papers in Canada print just about this quantity of reading matter per day. The union rate paid compositors in Canada is thirty-three and a third cents per one thousand ems. One hundred and twenty thousand ems would cost, therefore, about $40 for composition, apart from the cost of the type, foremen, office, etc. Forty dollars per day would come to $12,000 per year of three
