In 1868 the London Times had gone so far with its own experiments in constructing a ro tary perfecting press that it set up the °Walter' press in its office. This had a capacity of 12,000 sheets an hour. It was similar in construction to the Bullock press, except that the cylinders were of uniform size and placed one above the other. The sheets, however, were severed after printing, brought up by tapes and carried to a sheet-flier, which moved back and forth and °flirted° the sheets alternately to boys on either side. This press was equipped with dampening cylinders containing sponges filled with water, and required a very strong and expensive paper. This press was also adopted by the London Daily News and the New York Times, but has now entirely gone out of use.
To satisfy the demands of small daily papers throughout the country for speed and economy the Duplex press appeared late in the 19th tury. It is a flat-bed web-perfecting press and prints directly from the type form with a capac ity of from 5,000 to 6,000 per hour of either 6-, 8-, 10- or 12-page papers. The flat-beds are stationary and the cylinders reciprocate over them. By an ingenious method of handling the web of paper, it is taken from the roll, led to the cylinders, printed on both sides and deliv ered to the folder. It has been brought to a high degree of perfection.
Rotary Perfecting Presses.— About 1875 the modern rapid rotary perfecting newspaper press was born. Numerous inventors were try ing to accomplish the feat of feeding from a continuous roll of paper, printing on both sides at one operation, and delivering the product folded and cut as a complete newspaper. They had to overcome the difficulty of offset, that is, the smutting of the second side from wet ink if printed on at once. They had to secure bet ter and more uniform paper than then ordi narily supplied. They had to cut the roll to separate the sheets while the roll was traveling at a rapid rate. These problems were solved more completely by Andrew Campbell than by any other one man, though the credit of the invention has not been usually accorded to him. He built and operated a press in Jersey City which was the first really satisfactory perfecting newspaper press, but through misunderstandings and disagreement with his financial backers he refused to sign the necessary patent papers, or to protect his invention in any way, and allowed it to become public property. In the meantime the Hoes had worked on the problem, and Stephen D. Tucker had patented a rotary col lecting cylinder that was a very useful ad junct. The Hoes were, therefore, able to put together all this knowledge and produce a com mercial perfecting press, and by continuing to absorb inventions they have become the leading manufacturers in the world of rapid newspaper _presses.
The first machine of this type that R. Hoe and Company built went to London to Lloyd's Weekly, and the first to be set up in the United States was used in the office of the New York Tribune. The limit of capacity depended on the ability of the web paper to stand the strain of passing through the press. The average speed was 12,000 papers an hour.
The pressure on the newspapers demanded larger than eight-page papers. It became neces sary to devise some way to print 10-, 12-, 14 and 16-page papers at one impression. About this time Anthony and Taylor of England pat ented devices by which the webs of paper could be turned over after printing on one side and the opposite, or reverse side, presented to the printing cylinder. Mr. Hoe bought the patent rights for England and the United States, and with them combined ideas patented by Luther C. Crowell of Boston, who had made a machine for forming paper bags. After costly experi ments these ideas were incorporated in a so called *Double-Supplement* press, which was set up in the New York Herald office. Sim plicity, speed, accuracy and efficiency had been combined. phis turned out either 4-, 6-, 8-, 10- or 12-page papers at the rate of 24,000 an hour; the odd pages were accurately inserted and pasted in; the papers were cut and deliv ered folded. This press was really two presses built into one frame. In the secondary part the plate cylinders were half the length of those in the main pare and at right angles to them.
These were used for the supplements of two or four pages when it was desired to print more than eight pages. Each part was fed by its individual roll of paper. The plates being se cured to the cylinders, the two rolls of paper were carried, each through its part of the ma chine, between two pairs of plate cylinders and impression cylinders and printed on both sides. Then the two webs of paper passed over turn ing bars, or *angle bars,* with an edge at 45 degrees from its base, by which they were laid evenly and exactly one over the other as a brush from the paste fountain glided along the inner fold, pasting them together. The papers passed on down a triangular that folded them along the centre margin. Thence the printed and folded web of paper passed over a cylinder, from within which a revolving blade projected and thrust the paper between folding rollers, while at the same moment a knife in the cylinder severed the sheet. A rap idly revolving mechanism, resembling in its mo tion the fingers of a hand, disposed of them accurately on traveling belts that hurried them on to final delivery. Hundreds of this press have been built and operated in this country and abroad. Their efficiency was increased about 1900 by ari automatic stereotyping machine called the autoplate (q.v.).