Page:Newspaper writing and editing.djvu/25

 type, the whole page is "locked" in the "form" by a series of screws or wedges (called "quoins"), so that the form may be handled without letting the type drop out. If the type falls out and gets mixed up, it is said to be "pied," and the mixture is called "pi."

The forms, after being locked, are taken to the stereotyping room where a paper mold, or matrix, commonly called a "mat," is made of each page. These matrices, bent in semicircular form, are placed in a casting box into which molten lead is poured to make the semicircular lead plates to be used in printing. In large offices the casting of these plates is done by placing the matrix in an automatic stereotyping machine, known as the autoplate, which turns out completed plates in less than a minute. After the plates have been trimmed and planed on the back to make them exactly the right thickness, they are ready to be put on the press.

These semicircular lead plates, which are thus cast in exact reproduction of the page forms of type, are fastened on the cylinders of the press. As the cylinders revolve, ink rollers touch the surface of the plates and ink the projecting letters. The paper from a large roll, as it passes between the cylinders and the blanket rolls which press the paper against the inked plates on the cylinders, takes up the ink and thus has printed on it the impression of the page of type. Besides printing the pages, the press cuts, folds, and counts the papers so that the complete newspaper comes from the press ready for sale or delivery.

As soon as the newspapers are printed, they are turned over to the circulation department for distribution. Some copies go to the mailing room to be labeled with little orange-colored address slips and to be put into the mail sacks, in which they are taken to the post