Page:Newspaper writing and editing.djvu/26

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  • office or mail trains. Other copies are sold to waiting

newsboys, and still others are taken in the company's wagon to news stands and carriers all over the city.

Despite the number and variety of these details in the process of newspaper making, the news of the death of the attorney-general would reach the readers in a comparatively short time after the event occurred. In half an hour from the time the last piece of copy is written, a complete newspaper containing it is printed and ready for distribution.

Speed of Production. The invention and the perfection of various mechanical devices used in newspaper making have made possible this great speed. In the front rank of ingenious pieces of machinery that have added greatly to rapidity in newspaper publishing stands the linotype. This machine, which casts solid lines of type, or "slugs" as they are called, has increased four-fold the speed of production and has made possible much larger editions. The monotype, which casts each type separately, has also proved a valuable addition to the means of turning "copy" into type quickly. For the casting of semi-circular stereotype plates the autoplate machine is an important time-saving device. The time required for "running off" an edition is now reduced from two- to five-fold by making duplicate sets of these stereotype plates and by putting them on from two to five large presses so that these presses print the same edition simultaneously.

Improvements in newspaper-printing machinery have resulted in huge presses that take paper from large rolls and turn out completed newspapers printed in one or two colors, cut, folded, and counted, ready for distribution. They can be adjusted to print papers from four to forty-eight pages in size, and can produce