In a page of this size there are more than a thousand separate pieces of type, which, if set by hand, would have to be taken one by one and placed in the compositor’s “stick”; then when the line is nearly set it would have to be spaced out, or “justified,” to fill out the line exactly.  Then when the compositor’s “stick” is full, or two and a half inches have been set, the type has to be taken out and placed in a long channel, or “galley.”  Each of these three operations requires considerable time and close application, and with each change there is the possibility of error.  It is a long, expensive process.

A perfect typesetting machine should take the place of the hand compositor, setting the type letter by letter automatically in proper order at a maximum speed and with a minimum chance of error.

These three steps of hand composition, slow, expensive, open to many chances of mistake, have been covered at one stride at five times the speed, at one-third the cost, and much more accurately by a machine invented by Mr. Tolbert Lanston.

The operator of the Lanston machine sits at a keyboard, much like a typewriter in appearance, containing every character in common use (225 in all), and at a speed limited only by his dexterity he plays on the keys exactly as a typewriter works his machine.  This is the sum total of human effort expended.  The machine does all the rest of the work; makes the calculations and delivers the product in clean, shining new type, each piece perfect, each in its place, each line of exactly the right length, and each space between the words mathematically equal—­absolutely “justified.”  It is practically hand composition with the human possibility of error, of weariness, of inattention, of ignorance, eliminated, and all accomplished with a celerity that is astonishing.

[Illustration:  THE LANSTON TYPE-SETTER KEYBOARD As each key is pressed a corresponding perforation is made in the roll of paper shown at the top of the machine.  Each perforation stands for a character or a space.]

This machine is a type-casting machine as well as a typesetter.  It casts the type (individual characters) it sets, perfect in face and body, capable of being used in hand composition or put to press directly from the machine and printed from.

As each piece of type is separate, alterations are easily made.  The type for correction, which the machine itself casts for the purpose—­a lot of a’s, b’s, etc.—­is simply substituted for the words misspelled or incorrectly used, as in hand composition.

The Lanston machine is composed of two parts, the keyboard and the casting-setting machine.  The keyboard part may be placed wherever convenient, away from noise or anything that is likely to distract or interrupt the operator, and the perforated roll of paper produced by it (which governs the setting machine) may be taken away as fast as it is finished.  In the setting-casting machine is located the brains.