I cannot help
thinking that the improvement in this respect which has taken place in
these engines, and the improvement of agricultural machinery
generally, is very largely due to the Royal Agricultural Society, one
of the most enterprising bodies in England.
I now come to the very last subject I propose to speak upon, and that
is
PRINTING MACHINERY,
and especially as applied to the printing of newspapers. In 1831, we
had the steam press sending out a few hundred copies in an hour, and
doing that upon detached sheets, and thus many hours were required for
an edition of some thousands. The only way of expediting the matter
would have been to have recomposed the paper, involving, however,
double labor to the compositors, and a double chance of error. At the
present day, we have, by the Walter press, the paper printed on a
continuous sheet at a rate per hour at least three times as great as
that of the presses of 1831, and, by the aid of _papier mache_ moulds,
within five minutes from the starting of the first press, a second
press can be got to work from the stereotype plates, and a third one
in the next five minutes; and thus the wisdom of our senators, which
has been delivered as late as three o'clock in the morning, is able to
be transmitted by the newspaper train leaving Euston at 5:15 A.
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