History of the Typewriter

— 125 — that was anticipated. No sooner was the prospectus published than it met with the utmost opposition, and in the course of the criticism which appeared, it transpired (or perhaps, we should say, it was stated) that for the patent rights for which £75,000 was asked, the original vendor had received the sum of about £2,000 only ; thus showing a neat little profit of £73,000 to find its way into the pockets of the promoters ! We have a Rapid before us as we write, but entirely fail to perceive in what manner it is more rapid than any other machine—if, indeed, it were so fast. A writer once hit the nail on the head exactly when he said, that the most rapid feature about the Rapid was the rapid manner in which it disappeared. The Pneumatic. This machine was announced in London in about the year 1894, and embodied the same principle of type-thrusts as the foregoing. It was, however, based upon an original and interesting idea, that is to say, the motive power governing the movement of the type-bars was obtained by the expulsion of air from a series of small chambers each of which was marked with a letter denoting the type affected. In other words, in place of the usual keys a series of india rubber balls were arranged in rows. At the lower end of each ball was an india rubber tube, and Fig. 102 attached to this tube was a metal tube. The letters, figures, and signs, were formed on the ends of small rods which were made to slide in these metal tubes. On pressing the ball, or collapsible chamber, the expulsion of air carried with it the type-rod, which returned to its normal position on pressure being removed. The general mechanism of the machine was exceedingly simple. Specimens of work