I will not tire the reader with the many other difficult points surmounted, only by constant patience, during fifteen months. The type-composing machine was then a success, and my friend Young was greatly pleased at the result. His patent was much used in Paris, and in England it was employed by the spirited proprietor of the Family Herald, who gave an engraving of the machine at the head of the paper, very similar to the illustration, Fig. 14, on page 45, which shows the type-composing machine in operation. The person shown on the right is seated before a double set of flat keys, similar to the keys of a pianoforte, each key having its proper letter marked thereon; the depression of a key detaches its corresponding type from one of the numerous partitions in the box or case A; this type will then slide down the series of grooves allotted to it on the inclined plane B, and arrive at a point, C, where a rapidly vibrating finger or beater tips up every letter as it arrives into an upright position, and forces it along the channel D. These rows of letters are moved laterally, forming one line of the intended page. The boy on the left hand divides the words with a hyphen if necessary, or he so spaces them as to fill one complete line; this operation he can complete while another line is forming in the channel D. In this way he makes line after line until part of a page is set up, when he moves on the galley E, shown at his left hand. Thus a page or a long column of matter was produced with the greatest ease, and in a very short space of time.

In the ordinary way of composing types, each letter is picked up by hand from one of the numerous small divisions of a shallow box, or "case," as it is called, and the letters are then arranged in their right positions in a small frame held in the left hand of the compositor. About 1700 or 1800 letters per hour can be formed into lines and columns by a dexterous compositor, while as many as 6000 types per hour could be set by the composing machine. A young lady in the office of the Family Herald undertook the following task at the suggestion of the proprietor of The Times, viz.: she was to set up not less than 5000 types per hour for ten consecutive hours, on six consecutive days; giving a total of 300,000 letters in the week. This she easily accomplished, and was then presented with a £5 note by Mr Walter.

This mode of composing types by playing on keys arranged precisely like the keys of a pianoforte would have formed an excellent occupation for women; but it did not find favour with the lords of creation, who strongly objected to such successful competition by female labour, and so the machine eventually died a natural death.