History of the Typewriter

—190— The types can be cleaned in a moment, another of its many conveniences. The Underwood is a silent machine, not entirely with- out noise, of course, but one of the very quietest. The escapement mechanism is singularly rapid, requiring no speed dogs, and this, with the lightness of the carriage and the slight amount of force necessary to ensure its rapid movement, must make for the durability of the machine. There is an individual key tension, which permits of the finest adjustments at any time. Apart from all the advantages afforded by the Under- wood, and the host of good things it does possess, even a partial list of the things it does not possess is interesting, being, if possible, more eloquent. For the Underwood claims to be a complete typewriter, complete in itself, without the addition of any extra devices or attachments. It has, therefore, no special platen for manifolding and no special track to preserve alignment while so doing ; no additional holders for envelopes or cards, no counting device, no tabular scales ; nothing in fact, but what is supplied at the first cost with the machine. The Monarch. This machine was placed upon the American market in the autumn of 1904, and found its way into England in the spring of 1905. As will be seen, the Monarch possesses the peculiarity of being perfectly open in front, so that no part whatever intervenes between the eye of the operator and the actual imprint. The Monarch typewriter has a very interesting type- bar, which is mounted in a broad hanger and securely pivotted to the machine. It does not depend for alignment upon passing through the teeth of a comb, and it has no aligning guide at the point of printing. As the machine is once aligned, it is claimed that the strength and breadth of the bearings will continue to keep it, but, of course, in the case of two keys being depressed at one time, there is nothing to prevent one of them reaching the paper out of real alignment. The space-bar extends the whole width of the machine, and can be used by either hand, three shift-keys are pro- vided, that is to say, one for each of the little fingers, to be used when only one or two capital letters are required, and the other, which is a shift-lock-key, is depressed when it is sought to lock the shift-key in order to use the capitals for a whole line or otherwise. The shift-key may be un- locked by tapping the lower left shift-key.