History of the Typewriter

— 12 — For the typewriter is one of those products of skill which has exceeded all human anticipations. In the first place, it was introduced to be merely a substitute for the pen. Instead of holding the stylus as of old, the literary piano was to be played, and the tune it was to turn out was to be the typewritten document. But behold ! this is now but the most elementary part of the art. It quickly became clear that two, three, or more copies could be typed simultaneously. Then the mimeograph or duplica- tor became known, and the duplicator and the typewriter between them threatened to operate as the greatest enemy to the jobbing printer. But if the typewriter and the duplicator, between them, take one job from the printer, they send two jobs to him. The surprising power of the typewriter is, that it tends to create new work, rather than divert work from other folk. Instead of killing the printers, it gives and finds them work. Instead of killing the pen-making trade, the pen-makers all use it in their offices. There is more ink used to-day than ever before. Paper, although economised in the typewriter, is produced in greater quantities than ever before in the history of the world, and so the merry click of the machine goes on, and on. But even the power to turn out one, or say a thousand copies, did not discover the limitations of the powers of our marvellous machine. A slight addition to it, and the most difficult tabulated work became as easy of execution as any other class of work. Another happy thought, and the tabulator and the carbon sheet were combined in another device, and the day-book and invoice attachment permitted these two records to be made at one operation. Writers on office management, and bookkeepers all declare that the transcription of figures from one record to another is the most prolific source of errors, and so, at one swoop, this great pitfail was cleared away. To write on a loose sheet of paper was one thing : to write in a bound book was, apparently, quite another. But, as we shall see, even in the very earliest and crudest efforts in the invention of the typewriter, the possibility of substituting the thickest volume the world contains for the paper ordinarily used required merely the thinking of: and later inventors have seized upon this, or some similar idea, and now book typewriters are known in the further- most corners of the globe. Typewriters have also been invented for purposes outside the usual objects sought by writing machines. Musical