Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/275

 the nature of the work they have to perform, most of them, however, being adapted to the production of the high-class illustrations which characterize the publications of the House. In 1896 rotary machinery was introduced, and at the present time the majority of the magazines are printed on these machines. The rotaries are of various kinds and do a widely differing range of work, from the two-colour wrapper of the Penny Magazine, to printing, folding and cutting into 32-page sections the monthly pages of Cassell's Magazine of Fiction at the rate of 128,000 pages an hour.

It is a sort of backward sequence to go from printing machines to paper supply. Yet, as the interest is still gripped by the process of printing, the mind becomes conscious that every minute or two a trolley load of paper is run through the alley ways between the machines, coloured paper for covers and "jackets," toned paper for books, and piles upon piles of sheets glistening white in the light, coming to satisfy the appetite of the machines printing the serials which bear the imprint of the House. From the machine-room itself it is seen that the paper appears through wide swinging doors. Following the tram-lines out into the crypt-like subterranean corridor, one reaches the paper store. On the way, beneath the Yard itself, and also on the other side, the crypt is flanked by underground machine-rooms where busy rotaries sing out their ceaseless drone. But there is one gap, opening mostly to the sky, and with a hydraulic crane frowning above, whence some hundreds of reels of paper are lowered daily for feeding the rotaries, and cartload upon cartload of paper in the flat is conveyed to its temporary resting-place in the vast cellars which modestly figure in the language of the Yard as the white paper store.

All printed sheets are conveyed by electric lift to the warehouse on the floor above, where practically every sheet is carefully examined before being passed on to the stock room or sent to the binders. This remark,