Let us look for a moment at the method of inking the type. Until a comparatively recent date the inking was all done by hand, by means of an inking pad. The ink is now spread over the type with almost perfect regularity by means of flexible rollers.
Great improvements have been made in typesetting. Several late inventions largely take the place of the old-fashioned setting by hand. One of these which is much used in newspaper work, and to some extent upon books and magazines, is called the linotype. By pressing the key of the proper letter upon a keyboard arranged something like a typewriter, the letter is pushed down, and when a line of letters and words has been completed, and the words properly spaced, this matrix is pressed down upon the melted type metal. The line is already stereotyped for use.
The recent processes of stereotyping and electrotyping have added greatly to the cheapness, accuracy, and beauty of printing. Nearly all books formerly printed from movable type are now either stereotyped or electrotyped, so that edition after edition may be printed from the same plates.
The art of printing has been called the "Divine Art." It is "the art preservative of all arts." To a large extent all civilization depends upon the art of printing.
We have already seen that letters may be written and sent by mail to distant countries or cities. To send a letter to any place in our own country will cost us but two cents; to any country in Europe, but five cents. Indeed, we may send a letter to any one of the countries within the postal league,--and this includes most of the countries of Asia and South America, some parts of Africa and many islands of the sea,--for the same simple postage of five cents.
But the time was when nothing of the kind could have been done. In the "long ago" there was no post-office system in any country; no mails, regular or irregular, were sent from one place to another.
The modern postal system evidently grew out of the practice among kings of sending couriers to carry messages from one to another. In the early times some powerful rulers organized a staff of government couriers. After a time it came about that these government couriers began to carry letters from private individuals of high rank to their friends. So, in the process of time, this grew into a permanent system; that is, the government couriers were accustomed to carry private correspondence as well as the missives of the king.