750 | 751 | 752 | 753 | 754 |
1 | 314 | 629 | 943 | 1257 |
Anybody can set type on it who can read--and can do it after only 15
minutes' instruction. The operator does not need to leave his seat at
the keyboard; for the reason that he is not required to do anything
but strike the keys and set type--merely one function; the spacing,
justifying, emptying into the galley, and distributing of dead matter is
all done by the machine without anybody's help--four functions.
The ease with which a cub can learn is surprising. Day before yesterday
I saw our newest cub set, perfectly space and perfectly justify 2,150
ems of solid nonpareil in an hour and distribute the like amount in the
same hour--and six hours previously he had never seen the machine or
its keyboard. It was a good hour's work for 3-year veterans on the other
type-setting machines to do. We have 3 cubs. The dean of the trio is a
school youth of 18. Yesterday morning he had been an apprentice on the
machine 16 working days (8-hour days); and we speeded him to see what he
could do in an hour. In the hour he set 5,900 ems solid nonpareil, and
the machine perfectly spaced and justified it, and of course distributed
the like amount in the same hour. Considering that a good fair
compositor sets 700 and distributes 700 in the one hour, this boy did
the work of about 8 x a compositors in that hour. This fact sends all
other type-setting machines a thousand miles to the rear, and the best
of them will never be heard of again after we publicly exhibit in New
York.
We shall put on 3 more cubs. We have one school boy and two compositors,
752
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