THE MONOTYPE MACHINE.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9812, 23 August 1897, Page 6

THE MONOTYPE MACHINE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THK PRESS. Sib, —An unknown friend in Christchurch has been good enough to send mc two recent copies of the Pkess. In your issue of the 14th 1 find, in your Home correspondent's letter, a very interesting reference to the monotype machine. lam a diligent reader of the trade papers, British and foreign, and have been surprised that little or nothing hae lately appeared about what I have for some years regarded as the coming machine. For certain classes of work, notably, directory matter, electoral roll composition, &c, the Linotype is specially fitted, but for many classes of work the principle of the Monotype could scarcely be excelled. It is no small advantage tliftt the type produced is (except as regards space, which vary with each line), exactly similar to ordinary foundry type, and can, if advisable, be distributed and re-compoaed in the ordinary way. As in Linotype work, the Monotype matter has absolutely uniform spacing throughout each line, which is impossible in hand-consposition.

1 send you an old copy of my paper, Typo, in which is reviewed a lecture by the late William Morris on the printing of books, in which *' he gave printing about fifty years to last, or one hundred at the most." In this article, written in January, 1894, I wrote—"ln fact, the machine- 1 have come. There are the Linotype and the Rogers, turning out their solid lins3 and filling their galleys as if by magic ; the Thorne, working with single type, and discriminating with more than human precision ; there is the even more marvellous Monotype, which, fed with sheets of perforated card, casts singly and y swiftly each letter or space as required, in any sized type, and lastly there is the multiple telegraph of a Sydney inventor, by whicli one man at a keyboard can simultaneously operate any number of machines at any distance. Seven years ago not one of these wondrous pieces of mechanism existed, and the most advanced printers, with few exceptions, regarded machine-setting as Probably in twenty years move every existing composing machine will be out of date. One central news agency may print the telegrams in each locality with greater ease and accuracy than it now transmits the messages." The Monotype was then a novelty. Your correspondent suggests that improvements have lately been introduced. The letter bears out the estimate of the machine which I published nearly four years ago.— Yours, &c,

R. Coupland Harding, Wellington, 19th August, 1897.