life. It was simply the result of persevering
diligence, which
shrank from no effort and neglected no detail; as well as of
prudence
allied to
boldness, but certainly not "of chance;" and,
above all, of highminded
integrity and unimpeachable
honesty. It
is perhaps unnecessary to add more as to the merits of Mr. Walter
as a man of
enterprise in business, or as a public man and a
Member of Parliament. The great work of his life was the
development of his
journal, the history of which forms the best
monument to his merits and his powers.
The
progressiveimprovement of steam printing machinery was not
affected by Mr. Walter's death, which occurred in 1847. He had
given it an
impulse which it never lost. In 1846 Mr. Applegath
patented certain important
improvements in the steam press. The
general
disposition of his new machine was that of a
verticalcylinder 200 inches in
circumference,
holding on it the type and
distributing surfaces, and surrounded
alternately by inking
rollers and pressing
cylinders. Mr. Applegath estimated in his
specification that in his new
verticalsystem the machine, with
eight
cylinders, would print about 10,000 sheets per hour. The
new printing press came into use in 1848, and completely
justified the anticipations of its projector.
Applegath's machine, though
successfully employed at The Times
office, did not come into general use. It was, to a large
extent, superseded by the
invention of Richard M. Hoe, of New
York. Hoe's process consisted in placing the types upon a
horizontal
cylinder, against which the sheets were pressed by
exterior and smaller
cylinders. The types were arranged in
segments of a
circle, each
segment forming a frame that could be
fixed on the
cylinder. These printing machines were made with
from two to ten subsidiary
cylinders. The first presses sent by
Messrs. Hoe & Co. to this country were for Lloyd's Weekly
Newspaper, and were of the six-
cylinder size. These were
followed by two ten-
cylinder machines, ordered by the present Mr.
Walter, for The Times. Other English newspaper
proprietors--both
in London and the provinces--were supplied with the machines, as
many as thirty-five having been imported from America between
1856 and 1862. It may be mentioned that the two ten-
cylinderHoes made for The Times were
driven at the rate of thirty-two
revolutions per minute, which gives a printing rate of 19,200 per
hour, or about 16,000 including stoppages.
Much of the
ingenuity exercised both in the Applegath and Hoe
Machines was directed to the "chase," which had to hold securely
upon its curved face the mass of movable type required to form a
page. And now the
enterprise of the
proprietor of The Times
again came to the front. The change effected in the art of
newspaper-printing, by the process of stereotypes, is scarcely
inferior to that by which the late Mr. Walter
applied steam-power
to the printing press, and certainly equal to that by which the
rotary press superseded the reciprocatory action of the flat
machine.
Stereotyping has a curious history. Many attempts were made to
obtain solid printing-surfaces by
transfer from similar surfaces,
composed, in the first place, of movable types. The first who
really succeeded was one Ged, an Edinburgh
goldsmith, who, after
a
series of difficult experiments, arrived at a knowledge of the
art of stereotyping. The first method employed was to pour
liquid stucco, of the
consistency of cream, over the types; and
this, when solid, gave a perfect mould. Into this the molten
metal was poured, and a plate was produced,
accurately" target="_blank" title="ad.准确地;精密地">
accurately resembling
the page of type. As long ago as 1730, Ged obtained a privilege
from the University of Cambridge for printing Bibles and
Prayer-books after this method. But the
workmen were dead
against it, as they thought it would destroy their trade. The
compositors and the pressmen purposely battered the letters in
the
absence of their employers. In
consequence of this
interference Ged was ruined, and died in poverty.
The art had, however, been born, and could not be kept down. It
was revived in France, in Germany, and in America. Fifty years
after the discovery of Ged, Tilloch and Foulis, of Glasgow,
patented a similar
invention, without
knowing anything of what
Ged had done; and after great labour and many experiments, they
produced plates, the
impressions from which could not be
distinguished from those taken from the types from which they
were cast. Some years afterwards, Lord Stanhope, to whom the art
of printing is much
indebted, greatly improved the art of
stereotyping, though it was still quite in
applicable to newspaper
printing. The merit of this latter
invention is due to the
enterprise of the present
proprietor of The Times.
Mr. Walter began his experiments, aided by an
ingenious Italian
founder named Dellagana, early in 1856. It was ascertained that
when papier-mache matrices were rapidly dried and placed in a
mould, separate columns might be cast in them with stereotype
metal, type high, planed flat, and finished with sufficient speed
to get up the
duplicate of a forme of four pages fitted for
printing. Steps were taken to adapt these type-high columns to
the Applegath Presses, then worked with polygonal chases. When
the Hoe machines were introduced, instead of
dealing with the
separate columns, the papier-mache matrix was taken from the
whole page at one operation, by roller-presses
constructed for
the purpose. The
impression taken off in this manner is as
perfect as if it had been made in the finest wax. The matrix is
rapidly dried on heating surfaces, and then
accurately" target="_blank" title="ad.准确地;精密地">
accurately adjusted
in a casting machine curved to the exact
circumference of the
main drum of the printing press, and fitted with a terra-cotta
top to secure a casting of uniform
thickness. On pouring
stereotype metal into this mould, a curved plate was obtained,
which, after undergoing a certain
amount of trimming at two
machines, could be taken to press and set to work within
twenty-five minutes from the time at which the process began.
Besides the great
advantages obtained from uniform sets of the
plates, which might be printed on different machines at the rate
of 50,000
impressions an hour, or such
additional number as might
be required, there is this other great
advantage, that there is
no wear and tear of type in the curved chases by obstructive
friction; and that the fount, instead of wearing out in two
years, might last for twenty; for the plates, after doing their
work for one day, are melted down into a new
impression for the
next day's printing. At the same time, the original type-page,
safe from
injury, can be made to yield any number of copies that
may be required by the exigencies of the
circulation. It will be
sufficiently
obvious that by the
multiplication of stereotype
plates and printing machines, there is practically no limit to
the number of copies of a newspaper that may be printed within
the time which the process now usually occupies.
This new method of newspaper stereotyping was
originally employed
on the
cylinders of the Applegath and Hoe Presses. But it is
equally
applicable to those of the Walter Press, a brief
description of which we now subjoin. As the
construction" target="_blank" title="n.建设;修建;结构">
construction of the
first steam newspaper machine was due to the
enterprise of the
late Mr. Walter, so the
construction" target="_blank" title="n.建设;修建;结构">
construction of this last and most
improved machine is due in like manner to the
enterprise of his
son. The new Walter Press is not, like Applegath and Cowper's,
and Hoe's, the
improvement of an existing
arrangement, but an
almost entirely original
invention.
In the Reports of the Jurors on the "Plate, Letterpress, and
other modes of Printing," at the International Exhibition of
1862, the following passage occurs:-- "It is incumbent on the
reporters to point out that, excellent and
surprising as are the
results achieved by the Hoe and Applegath Machines, they cannot
be considered
satisfactory while those machines themselves are so
liable to stoppages in
working. No true
mechanic can contrast
the
immense American ten-
cylinder presses of The Times with the