Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/375

 Popular Science Monthly

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��tures when grasped in the hand of the deputy paymaster author- ized to do the work, rests on a ball bearing and is connected with ten fountain pens. With Uiis device, a novice can trace twenty thousand signatures in a clciv without fatisfue.

���Ten fountain pens obey the impulses of the master pen in the operator's hand, and one man can sign twenty thousand checks a day

For each employ- ee there is a type plate bearing h i s name. These plates are placed in a ma- chine which can be operated by a clerk receiving $ 5 4 a year. The individ- ual checks are print- ed with names and appropriate amounts at the rate of sev- enty-five hundred an hour. The machine is almost human. It

stops automatically when the supply of check blanks is exhausted, or the reser- voir of name-plates has been emptied.

The checks are numl^ered and dated in a container whose principle of opera- tion is that of the machine used in can- celling stamps on letters in post offices. In order to make the checks valid, of course, they must be signed. This is done on a machine so designed that ten will receive the signature sinniltaneouslv. The penholder, which traces the signa-

��A machine for num- bering and dating checks. The checks are carried forward in a vertical posi- tion by means of long belts

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