of about 50,000 pieces a day. In this way, the weight of type in
ordinary use became very great; it amounted to not less than 500 tons,
and the stereotyped plates to about 2500 tons the value of the latter
being not less than half a million sterling.

Mr. Clowes would not hesitate, in the height of his career, to have
tons of type locked up for months in some ponderous blue-book. To
print a report of a hundred folio pages in the course of a day or
during a night, or of a thousand pages in a week, was no uncommon
occurrence. From his gigantic establishment were turned out not fewer
than 725,000 printed sheets, or equal to 30,000 volumes a week. Nearly
45,000 pounds of paper were printed weekly. The quantity printed on
both sides per week, if laid down in a path of 22 1/4 inches broad,
would extend 263 miles in length.

About the year 1840, a Polish inventor brought out a composing machine,
and submitted it to Mr. Clowes for approval. But Mr. Clowes was
getting too old to take up and push any new invention.

He was also averse to doing anything to injure the compositors, having
once been a member of the craft. At the same time he said to his son
George, "If you find this to be a likely machine, let me know. Of
course we must go with the age. If I had not started the steam press
when I did, where should I have been now?" On the whole, the composing
machine, though ingenious, was incomplete, and did not come into use at
that time, nor indeed for a long time after. Still, the idea had been
born, and, like other inventions, became eventually developed into a
useful working machine. Composing machines are now in use in many
printing-offices, and the present Clowes' firm possesses several of
them. Those in The Times newspaper office are perhaps the most perfect
of all.

Mr. Clowes was necessarily a man of great ability, industry, and
energy. Whatever could be done in printing, that he would do. He would
never admit the force of any difficulty that might be suggested to his
plans. When he found a person ready to offer objections, he would say,
"Ah! I see you are a difficulty-maker: you will never do for me."

Mr. Clowes died in 1847, at the age of sixty-eight. There still remain
a few who can recall to mind the giant figure, the kindly countenance,
and the gentle bearing of this "Prince of Printers," as he was styled
by the members of his craft. His life was full of hard and useful
work; and it will probab