PRINCIPAL AND SURETY-PRINTING. nice distinctions that exist in the law on this subject as to the mutual rights and liabilities of the parties are too numerous to be here noticed. PRINCIPAL AND SURETY. Ce SURETY. PRINCIPATO, CITRA and ULTRA, formerly the name of two provinces of the kingdom of Naples. Principato Citra, now forming the province of Salerno in the reorganised kingdom of Italy, is a maritime province, bounded on the S.W. by the Mediterranean, and on the N. by the province of Principato Ultra, now called Avellino. The united area of the two provinces is 3405 square miles; pop. 883,877. Principal towns in Principato Citra are Salerno (from which it derives its present name), Sarno, and Pagani; in Principato Ultra, Avellino (from which it takes its present name), Ariano, and Cervinara. PRINTERS, LAW AS TO. There are varions British restrictions on the sale and use of printingpresses, which have been imposed in consequence of the extended and secret influence often exercised by them; and the law of treason and libel is intimately associated with the press. By an act of 39 Geo. IIL c. 79 (amended by 51 Geo. III. c. 65, and 2 and 3 Vict. c. 12), entitled an act for suppressing seditious and treasonable practices, reciting the mischief produced by the publication of irreligious, treasonable, and seditious libels, and the difficulty of tracing the authors, it is enacted that every person having a printing-press, or types for printing, shall give notice thereof to the clerk of the peace where the same is intended to be used, and shall obtain a certificate of registration, otherwise he is liable to a penalty of £20. But the Queen's printers for England and Scotland, and the university presses of Oxford and Cambridge, are excepted. So letterfounders and makers of types must register themselves under a like penalty; and they must keep an account of all the persons to whom types and presses are sold, which account may be inspected by a justice of the peace. So printers must keep a copy of every paper they print for hire or reward, and shall endorse thereon the name of the person employing them to do so, under a penalty of £20. Every printer who shall print a book or paper without having the printer's name and address on the first or last leaf thereof, shall, by the act 2 and 3 Vict. c. 12, s. 2, forfeit £5 for every copy printed; but the only person who can sue for or enforce this penalty is the Attorney or Solicitor General of England, or the Lord Advocate of Scotland. But for the previous penalties, any informer may sue, and the justices may mitigate the penalties to £5. It follows from these enactments that a printer cannot recover his expenses for labour and materials in printing a work, unless he has complied with the statutory requirements. On a recent occasion, in which a printer in England who sued for his account was met with a defence founded on these statutes, it was discovered by the London printers that few of them had registered themselves, and accordingly they took occasion to repair the error. With regard to the printing trade, many customs prevail which do not differ in point of law froin the customs affecting other trades, it being the rule that customs of a peculiar trade are binding unless specially excluded. As to obscene prints, sea OBSCENE PRINTING is the art of producing impressions, from characters or figures, on paper or any other substance. There are several distinct branches of this important art-as the printing of books with movable types, the printing of engraved copper and steel plates (see ENGRAVING), and the taking of impressions from stone, called Lithography (q. v.). We have now to describe the art of printing books or sheets with movable types, generally called letter-press printing, and which may undoubtedly be esteemed the greatest of all human inventions. The art of printing is of comparatively modern book was issued from the press; yet we have origin, only 400 years having elapsed since the first proofs that the principles upon which it was ultimately developed existed among the ancient Assyrian nations. Entire and undecayed bricks of the famed city and tower of Babylon have been found stamped with various symbolical figures and hieroglyphic characters. In this, however, as in every similar relic of antiquity, the object which stamped the figures was in one block or piece, and therefore could be employed only for one distinct subject. This, though a kind of printing, was totally useless for the propagation of literature, on account both of its expensiveness and tediousness. The Chinese are the only existing people who still pursue this rude mode of printing by stamping paper with blocks of wood. The work which they intend to be printed is, in the first place, carefully written upon sheets of thin transparent paper; each of these sheets is glued, with the face downwards, upon a thin tablet of hard wood; and the engraver then, with proper instruments, cuts away the wood in all those parts on which nothing is traced; thus leaving the transcribed characters in relief, and ready for printing. In this way, as many tablets are necessary as there are written pages. No press is used; but when the ink is laid on, and the paper carefully placed above it, a brush is passed over with the proper degree of pressure. A similar kind of printing by blocks, for the production of playingcards and rude pictures of scriptural subjects, was in use in Europe towards the end of the 14th cen tury. But in all this there was little merit. The great discovery was that of forming every letter or character of the alphabet separately, so as to be capable of rearrangement, and forming in succession the pages of a work, thereby avoiding the interminable labour of cutting new blocks of types for every page. The credit of discovering this simple yet marvellous art is contested by the Dutch in favour of Laurence Coster (q. v.), between 1420 and 1426; and by the Germans, on behalf of Johann Gänsfleisch of the Gutenberg (q. v.) family, about 1438. In all probability, the discovery was made almost simultaneously-such a theory being consistent with the general social progress at the period, and the secrecy which both inventors at first maintained respecting their art. The types first employed were of wood; but soon the practice of casting them in metal was introduced. See TYPES. The earliest of these metal types resembled the black letter in use by transcribers, and one great aim of the first printers was to produce books which should closely resemble the works in manuscript hitherto in use. Between 1450 and 1455, Gutenberg succeeded in printing a Bible, copies of which are now exceedingly rare and valuable. It is in quarto size, double columns, the initial letters of the chapters being executed with the pen, in colours. Besides this Bible, some other specimens of the work of Gutenberg, the produce of his press at Mayence, have been discovered. The Dutch, at Haarlem, preserve and shew with reverential care similar speci mens of early printing by Coster. Mayence, Strasburg, and Haarlem were indisputably the places where printing was executed before the art was extended to Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan, Paris, Tours, and other continental cities. Previous to 1471, it had reached these and various other places; and about the same year, Caxton (q. v.) introduced the art into England, by setting up a press in Westminster Abbey. PRINTING. Printing was introduced into Scotland about 30 years after Caxton had brought it to England; in 1551, it reached Dublin, and to other quarters it found its way very slowly. While coming into notice, its progress had been interrupted by the broils consequent on the Reformation; and soon afterwards, it was retarded by the civil war in Great Britain. Even the Restoration acted detrimentally, for it led to an act of parliament which prevented more than 20 printers carrying on their art in England. Printing, in short, has in almost every country been an ill-used art; and is still in various countries practised under fiscal restrictions. In Germany and Holland, where it originated, it has, on account of sundry obstructions, gained little way-the work produced at Mayence and Haarlem being, for example, still of a very inferior kind; while, in recent times, in England and the United States, the art has attained to extraordinary proficiency. Printing is now conducted in all the British colonial possessions, but in few is the work of a superior character-the best perhaps being that produced at Melbourne in Victoria. Retarded by the jealousy of governments, printing for some ages derived little advantage from mechanical ingenuity. Originating at the middle of the 15th, the art continued to be conducted until the middle of the 17th c. in a very clumsy manner. The press resembled a screw-press, with a contrivance for running the form of types under the point of pressure; force having been thus applied, the screw was relaxed, and the form withdrawn with the impression executed on the paper. The defects of this very rude mechanism were at length partially remedied by an ingenious Dutch mechanic, Willem Jansen Blaeu, who carried on the business of a mathematical instrument-maker at Amsterdam. He contrived a press, in which the carriage holding Fig. 1.-Old Common Press. the form was wound below the point of pressure, which was given by moving a handle attached to a screw hanging in a beam having a spring, which spring caused the screw to fly back as soon as the impression was given. This species of press, which was almost entirely formed of wood, continued in general use in every country in Europe till the beginning of the present century. With certain lever powers attached to the screw and handle, it is represented above. In connection with this representation of the old conmon press, the process of printing may be described. The form, being laid on the sole of the press (8), is fixed at the sides, so as to render it immovable from its position. There are two men employed one puts ink on the form, either by means of stuffed balls or by a composition-roller, and the other works the press. The latter lifts a blank sheet from a table at his side, and places it on what is called the tympan (t), which is composed of parchment and blanket-stuff, fitted in a frame, and tightened like the top of a drum-and hence its name and which, by means of hinges connecting it with the sole, folds down like a lid over the form. As the sheet, however, would fall off in the act of being brought down, a skeleton-like slender frame, called a frisket (f), is hinged to the upper extremity of the tympan, over which it is brought to hold on the paper. Thus, the frisket being first folded down over the tympan, and the tympan next folded down over the form, the impression is ready to be taken. This is done by the left hand of the pressman winding the carriage below the platten (p), or pressing surface, and the impression is performed by the right hand pulling the handle attached to the screw mechanism. The carriage is then wound back, the printed sheet lifted off, and another put on the tympan, the form again inked, and so on successively. In the above engraving, the press appears with the frisket and tympan sloping upwards, ready to receive the sheet, the frisket being sustained from falling backwards by a slip of wood depending from the ceiling. One of the greatest niceties connected with this art is the printing of the sheet on the second side in such a manner that each page, nay, each line, shall fall exactly on the corresponding page and line on the side first printed. To produce this desirable effect, two iron points are fixed in the middle of the sides of the frame of the tympan, which make two small holes in the sheet during the first pressure. When the sheet is laid on to receive an impression from the second form, these holes are placed on the same points, so as to cause the two impressions to correspond. This is termed producing register; and unless good register is effected, the printing has a very indifferent appearance. However improved, a press of the above description could not impress more than half a sheet; and the practice was to first squeeze so much of the sheet, then relax the handle, wind the second half below the platten, and print it in turn. Thus, each sheet required four squeezes to complete it-two on each side. It is not without a degree of wonder that one reflects on the rudimentary clumsiness of the whole operation; and it seems not less marvellous, that it was by no other process that the best typography could be produced until the conclusion of the 18th century. He The first improvement upon the printing-press was made by the celebrated Earl Stanhope. constructed the press of iron, and that of a size sufficient to print the whole surface of a sheet, and he applied such a combined action of levers to the screw as to make the pull a great deal less laborious to the pressman; the mechanism altogether being such as to permit much more rapid and efficient working. A multitude of improvements speedily succeeded that of Earl Stanhope, in most of which the screw was dismissed, the pressure being generally effected by levers, or by the simple and efficient principle of straightening a joint. Among those which have gained a large share of approbation may be mentioned the Columbian press, which is of American invention. This press, a representation of which is annexed, was brought to Great Britain in 1818 by Mr George Clymer of Philadelphia, and patented. The pressing-power in this instance is procured by a long bar or handle acting upon a combination of exceedingly powerful levers (a, a, a, a) above the platten; the return of the handle or levers being effected by means of counterpoises or weights (c, c). For ease and facility of pull, this press is preferred by most workmen; and certainly the PRINTING. powerful command which the leverage enables the workman to exercise, is favourable to delicacy and exactness of printing-his arm feeling, as it were, Fig. 2.-Columbian Press. through the series of levers to the very face of the types. In the present day, the old wooden press of Blaeu is entirely discarded from use. To secure good printing, the following points are essential. 1. The types, carefully set, fixed with precision in forms, rendered level all over, so that all parts may be pressed alike, and the whole properly cleaned by a wash of potash lye. 2. A uniform inking of the surface, to give uniformity of colour. 3. The paper damped equably, neither too much nor too little, so as to take an impression easily and evenly. 4. An equable, firm, and smart pressure, and with that degree of steadiness in the mechanism that the sheet shall touch and leave the types without shaking and blurring, 5. Care in adjusting the pointers (or gauge), so that perfect register may be secured in printing the second side. 6. Such frequency in changing fly or under-sheets on the tympan, that the first side shall not get dirtied by off-setting when printing the second side. 7. The laying of small patches on the tympan, where, from any inequality, it seems necessary to bring up the pressing surface to a thorough equality. A regard to all these circumstances constitutes the duty of a pressman. Bad printing is usually a result of old and worn types, want of proper cleaning, and an inferior kind of ink. Printing by hand-presses of an improved kind con Fig. 3.-Flat-pressure Machine. tinnes to be used in the case of limited impressions, or where extra care and elegance in typography are required; also where machinery is unattainable; but in general circumstances, and more particularly to meet the demand for popular reading, printing is now executed by one or other of the varieties of cylinder-presses, moved by steampower. Attempts have indeed been made to introduce flat-pressure machines, by which as many as 700 sides can be printed per hour; but these, though possessing the advantage of superseding severe bodily labour, and demanding only the services of a boy to lay on and another to take off the sheets, have never become common. We offer a representation of a machine of this kind, made by J. Brown & Co., engineers, Kirkcaldy. More success, as regards flat-pressure machines, has been attained in the United States, where much fine work is provided by a clever adaptation of this kind, particularly in New York, Boston, and Phila. delphia. No flat pressure, however, can compete, in point of speed, with the pressure which is communicated by revolving iron cylinders. Cylinder-printing is the great modern fact in the history of the art, progress in which department has been facilitated by the invention of inking rollers made of a certain composition, to supersede the old process of inking by stuffed balls (see ROLLERS). In 1790, Mr Nicholson, the editor of the Philosophical Journal, procured a patent for certain improvements in printing, which patent embodies almost every principle since so successfully applied to printing-machines; and although he did not carry his views into practical effect, little has been left for subsequent engineers to do, but to apply, in the most judicious manner, the principles he laid down in his patent. Whether Mr Nicholson's ideas were known to Mr König, a German, is now uncertain; but to him is due the distinguished merit of carrying steam-printing first into effect. Arriving in London about 1804, he first projected improvements on the common press; but after a while, he turned his attention to cylinderprinting. The first result of his experiments was a small machine, in which the two leading features of Nicholson's invention were embraced (the cylinders and the inking-rollers), which he exhibited to Mr Walter, proprietor of the Times newspaper; and on shewing what further improvements were contemplated, an agreement was entered into for the erection of two machines for printing that journal. Accordingly, on the 28th of November 1814, the public were apprised that the number of the Times of that date was the first ever printed by machinery, steam-propelled. At this period, but few persons knew of any attempts going on for the attainment of this object; whilst among those connected with printing, it had often been talked of, but treated as chimerical. After the utility of cylindrical printing had been thus proved, it was thought highly desirable that the principle should be applied to printing fine book-work, where accurate register is indispensable. This was, to a certain extent, attained by using two large cylinders, the sheet of paper being conveyed from the bottom of the first cylinder (where it had received the first impression) by means of tapes, leading in a diagonal direction to the top of the second cylinder, round which the sheet was carried till the second side was printed. The first machine of this description was erected at Mr Bensley's office, where it continued at work for some years, till more modern machines superseded it. In the course of 1818, Messrs Applegath and Cowper took out a patent for improvements in cylindrical printing machinery. The chief improvements were, the application of two drums placed betwixt the cylinders to insure accuracy in the PRINTING. register, over and under which the sheet was conveyed in its progress from one cylinder to the other, instead of being carried, as in König's machine, in a straight line from the one cylinder to the other; and the mode of distributing the ink upon tables instead of rollers-two principles which have secured to machines of this construction a decided preference for fine work. Machines of this construction were made by Applegath and Cowper for the principal printing establishments in London, Paris, Edinburgh, and many other cities; and it is nearly upon the model of their machines that other manufacturers now construct their steam-presses for the execution of ordinary book-work. Printing-machines may be divided into two distinct classes-those for printing book-work, in which register is required, and those for printing newspapers, in which register is not sought for, and speed is of first consequence. Applegath and Cowper's book-machine, as just mentioned, remains the best of its kind. The machine, moved by steam-power, from which the annexed engraving is taken, is one of this description. It is about 15 feet long by 5 broad, and consists of a very strong cast-iron frame-work, secured Fig. 4-Book-Machine. together by two ends and several cross-bars. To this frame, all parts of the machine are fixed. In external figure, as seen in the cut, it is a large apparatus, of imposing appearance. On approaching it when at work, we perceive two cylinders, as large as hogsheads, revolving on upright supports; two smaller cylinders or drums revolving above them; and beneath, within the framework, a table, on which lie the types at both ends, going constantly backward and forward. A belt from a steamengine, acting upon a shaft in the frame, gives motion to the whole apparatus. It will further be observed that a boy, marked a in the cut, is standing on the top of some steps feeding in sheets of paper, each of which, on being delivered, is swept round the first cylinder b (being held on by tapes), gets its impression below from the types, is carried over and betwixt the drums above, and then brought round on the second cylinder c; now it gets its second side printed, and issuing into the space between the cylinders, is seized by the boy d, who lays it on a table completely printed. The whole operation is accompanied with a loud noise, from the revolving of the cylinders, the working of the notched wheels, and the driving of the table to and fro by a rack beneath, but without any strain on the mechanism, or risk of injury to the attendants. On minutely examining the parts, we observe that at each end there is an apparatus of rollers taking ink from a ductor or reservoir of that material, and placing it upon a portion of the moving table beneath; here other rollers distribute it, while others take it off and roll it upon the pages of types, ready for each impression. The two printing cylinders are nearly nine feet in circumference each, and are placed about two feet apart. They are accurately turned, so that the surfaces of the type-carriages and the cylinders may be perfectly parallel. The axis of each cylinder works in brass bearings in the upright framework, where, by means of screws, the degree of pressure with which the cylinders are allowed to rest upon the types may be regulated to any degree of nicety. Over about two feet of the circumference of each cylinder which forms the printing-surface, two folds of cloth, called blankets, are stretched_by means of rollers placed inside the cylinder. The lower blanket is seldom changed, but the upper one, on the second cylinder (which stands in the stead of what are called slip-sheets in hand-press printing), must be shifted as soon as the ink which it has absorbed from the printing on the first side of the sheet begins to set off, or soil the paper, when receiving the second impression. This shifting is speedily effected, by unrolling a sufficient quantity of the cloth off one roller, and winding it up on the other, to present a clean portion to the printing surface. The cylinders have a continuous rotary motion towards each other, given by two large toothed wheels, whilst the type-carriages move backward and forward under them. The movements are so contrived that the type-carriages shall have gone and returned to the same point during the period that the cylinders have made one entire revolution; consequently, each successive impression is taken from the types by the same part of each cylinder. The two drums placed between the cylinders are for the purpose of causing the sheet of paper to pass smoothly and accurately from one printing cylinder to the other. To preserve the sheet in its proper place on the cylinders, and carry it forward through the different parts of its journey from the hand of the one boy to that of the other, there is an extensive apparatus of tapes, some of which are observable in the cut. These tapes are half an inch broad, and are formed into series of endless bands, arranged at certain distances apart, so as to fall into the interstices and margins of the forms, and therefore escape being crushed between the types and cylinders. The machine may be stopped at any instant by turning the handle of a lever, which shifts the belt from the fast to a loose pulley, without stopping the engine. Such is the form of the machine that has printed the present work, which may be taken as a fair specimen of what this kind of press can, with carefulness, produce, at the rate of 700 sheets complete per hour. Non-registering machines for rapid printing are of various kinds, according to the degree of speed which is demanded. In those first introduced, the principle was that of pressure by a cylinder on a form of types laid upon a table, which was passed beneath it by a forward and retrograde motion; the inking being effected as in the above described perfecting machines. Having received one side by this means, the sheets were afterwards printed on the second side; such second impression containing the news up till the latest hour of going to press. This species of single cylinder printing-machine was well adapted for newspapers of which only a few thousand copies were wanted; and for this purpose, it is still in use, particularly in provincial towns in Great Britain. As presses of this sort, however, do not usually yield more than 4000 or 5000 impressions per hour, they are quite unfitted for printing newspapers having a circulation of 20,000 copies and upwards, the whole of which must be promptly produced by a certain hour every morning. The liberation of newspapers from the obligatory pennystamp in 1855, caused so great an increase of PRINTING. circulation, that none of the ordinary processes, bevelled shape the bevel corresponding to the including that just referred to, was at all adequate for the work required. Recourse had to be made to an entirely new method of printing, the invention of which is due to Richard M. Hoe of New York. Hoe's process consists in placing the types on a horizontal cylinder, revolving on its axis, against which the sheets are pressed by exterior and smaller cylinders. A similar process, by means of an upright cylinder, had been employed by Mr Applegath for printing the Times in 1848; but the expense involved in its construction and working prevented it coming into general use. Hoe's process was therefore the first successful attempt to print on this singularly ingenious and effective principle. As types must necessarily stand on a flat surface, in order to be held together and properly printed, it will seem incomprehensible how they should be built up on the exterior of an iron drum, and there yield legible impressions. Yet, this is done by Hoe's process. The pages of type are arranged in segments of a circle, each segment forming a frame that can be fixed on the cylinder. These frames are technically called turtles. Each column of type stands on a level strip of the turtle, while between the columns the brass rules for printing the lines are of a convexity of the turtle; so that by means of this bevelling, the form of type is susceptible of being tightened up and made ready for press. The forms Occupy only a portion of the main cylinder, the remainder affording space for the inking apparatus. The smaller surrounding cylinders for effecting the pressure are arranged in a frame-work, in connection with slopes, by which the sheets are fed in blank, and come out printed. The size of the main cylinder, the number of exterior cylinders, and the rate of speed at which the whole machine is kept working, determine the number of impressions printed per hour. Such is the method of working Hoe's rotary machines, which, as wanted, are made with 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 subsidiary cylinders; those of the largest dimensions being now employed in printing the daily newspapers in New York. The first introduced into Europe (with the exception of one made for the Paris newspaper, La Patrie, in 1848) was one with six cylinders for printing Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper in London, in 1857. Upwards of forty of these machines, of different sizes, are now in operation in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other cities in Great Britain, where cheap daily newspapers are produced. Some idea of the process one hour, each feeder must lay in sheets at the rate of 34 per minute, or 2040 per hour. In each revo lution of the large cylinder, therefore, six sheets receive each its impression; and as it moves, say, at the rate of 34 revolutions in a minute, 204 impressions are necessarily produced, giving in 60 minutes, or one hour, 12,240 impressions. In the 8 and 10 cylinder machines, the number of impres sions produced per hour would be, respectively, 16,320, and 20,400; but the larger machines are not run at so great a speed as 34 revolutions per minute, and the actual number produced is, there fore, rather less. The productive power of the machine is only limited by the skill and dexterity of the feeders or layers-on. In the New York Herald printing-office, the manipulative power of the feeders has been so much increased by practice, that 2500 is by no means an unusual number of sheets to be laid on by each workman in an hour. Applying this to the six-cylinder machine, and sup posing the main cylinder to revolve at the rate of 42 revolutions per minute, with six skilful feeders, each capable of laying on 42 sheets in a minute, it follows that 252 impressions would be produced; |