ype for some recent books of the
very highest class, so-called "editions de luxe," has been cast and
set by the monotype machine would seem to afford justification for
this claim, extravagant as at first glance it may appear.

The monotype machine is, to use a Hibernicism, two machines, which,
though quite separate and unrelated, are yet mutually interdependent
and necessary the one to the other. One of these is the composing
machine, or keyboard, the other the caster, or type-founder. To begin
with the former: this is in appearance not unlike a large typewriter
standing upon an iron pedestal, the keyboard which forms its principal
feature having two hundred and twenty-five keys corresponding to as
many different characters. This keyboard is generally placed in some
such position in the printing office as conduces to the health and
comfort of the operator, for there is no more noise or disagreeable
consequence attendant on its operation than in the case of the
familiar typewriter, which it so markedly resembles.

It has been said that the machines are interdependent; yet they are
entirely independent as to time and place. The keyboard, as a matter
of fact, acts as a sort of go-between betwixt the operator and the
casting-machine, setting the latter the task it has to perform and
indicating to it the precise manner of its performance. A roll of
paper, which as the keyboard is operated continuously unwinds and is
rewound, forms the actual means of communication between the two
machines. The operator, as he (or she, for in increasing numbers women
are being trained as monotype operators) sits facing the keyboard, has
before him, conveniently hanging from an adjustable arm, the "copy"
that has to be set in type. As he reads it he manipulates the keys
precisely as does an operator on a typewriter, but each key as it is
depressed, in place of writing a letter, punches certain round holes
in the roll of paper. Enough keys are depressed to form a word, then
one is touched to form a space, and so on until just before the end of
the line is reached (the length of this line, or the "measure," as it
is termed, has at the outset been determined upon by the setting of an
indicator) a bell rings, and the operator knows that he must prepare
to finish the line with a completed word or syllable and then proceed
to justify it. "Justification," as it is termed, is perhaps the
most difficult function of either the hand or the machine compo