Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/189

 Rh some twenty or thirty minutes. A melted composite metal is poured over the face of the type and an impression of the whole print taken as easily as a mould in plaster of Paris. The process is by no means an agreeable one. The furnace, heated with a seven times seven degree of heat, makes the room insufferable; whilst the fumes of the liquid metal load the air with a burning and choking stench. The reader, however, is privileged to remain outside this department; I have no intention of taking him over it, or going through it myself. It is one of those places on which distance confers enchantment.

Far more worthy of a visit are the paper and machine rooms.

If the reader will reflect for a moment on the vast consumption of paper necessitated by the incredible demand for newspapers at the present day, it will strike him that the quantity of this article employed must be prodigious. Enormous is another big word which I might have employed; but "prodigious" seems to convey an idea of moral and material bulk. It is something vast, that startles and baffles the powers of conception, and puzzles the mind. Take the Representatives of the dear and cheap press, for example. Consider for a moment the number of sheets which each day's impression devours. Setting the circulation of the former down at between 60,000 and 70,000, and of the latter at above 100,000,—which is, I am assured, under the mark,—for these journals alone more than 400 reams daily are required, or for the three hundred and thirteen publishing days of the year, a hundred and twenty-five thousand reams.

Whence are we to obtain the raw food with which even these cormorants of the press shall be satisfied? Thanks to the repeal of the paper-duty, Belgium, France, Austria, and even Italy come to the aid of the English mills, and ship to our ports the necessary material. It would be difficult for the untutored mind to puzzle out the arithmetical problem suggested by the figures introduced above. A glance at the warehouse, or a walk through the vaults in which the stock is kept, will give a far better notion of the quantities consumed. We could form a juster idea of what sized pyramid so many billions of sands would make if we were told it would form one as large as St. Paul's, than if we were to strive till doomsday to evolve it all out of our own consciousness. So with this paper calculation. The eye is the best assistant. These piles upon piles, these groves of virgin quires, waiting to be rendered serviceable to mankind, which at present encumber the room from floor to ceiling, reveal to us the wealth which is devoured every four-and-twenty hours.

Before, however, this paper is fit for use every ream has to be wetted, otherwise it would not take the ink. Tanks have therefore to be kept well supplied with water, and numerous hands are separately engaged to perform the "wetting process." In fact, the paper-room of a first-class journal is in itself a curiosity, with its Pelions of paper, its gushing tanks and sloppy troughs, its stone slabs,—reminding one of a fishmonger's stall,—on which the paper is damped, and with its ministering spirits in paper caps and tucked-up sleeves.

What a number of rolling wheels, what a measured and monotonous click-clack of rising and falling frames! This is the machine-room, where the paper, to speak technically, is machined, that is, passed through the press. Excuse the oily odour, the hot breath, the steaming air, that greet you. A large quantity of gas is required to give sufficient light, besides, in that room close by lies the enormous boiler which generates the motive power that puts this whole network of machinery in action. What noise, what confusion! Roller and wheel whirling madly round, with cranks and metals leaping backwards and forwards, to and fro, like iron imps; how instinct of life it all is! What a merry chase this sliding piece has after that revolving drum, and see, just as it is on the point of catching it, it stops short and beats an ignominious retreat; and can it be that all this apparent fun and frolic is work in earnest?

The machine is what is called a cylindrical one; it is American, constructed by Hoe of New York, whose fame is universal. On a huge cylinder or drum, in the centre, are placed the turtles which I have already mentioned, containing the journal in type. A roller which delights to wallow in a bath of ink, presses at regular intervals against the cylinder and thus wets the surface of the type. On either side of the drum are, according to the size of the machine, four, six, or ten huge flaps, called "feeders," which work like punkahs stroking the air. On each of these feeders a ream of paper is so adjusted that by a slight touch of the man or boy who stands by to attend to this particular duty, each sheet is individually drawn between the rollers, which catch it up like lightning, whirl it round the cylinder, and by means of straps, deposit a printed sheet of paper on a platform underneath the spot whence it started. One half of the impression only has been taken. When a sufficient number of copies, thus semi-finished, have been printed off, the turtles are removed, and the remaining ones put on. A bell rings, the