A PRINTING RECORD.

Thames Star, Volume XVII, Issue 5213, 1 October 1885, Page 3

A PRINTING RECORD.

An old Compositor sets 120,000 milks of Type.

Michael J. Quinn, of Erie, Pa., is an old printer of over fifty years " standing, who has done a deal of "setting." He now holds oases on tbe Erie Daily Herald, aDd although almost 70, uses his eyes without the aid of the optician o* glasses. "Father" Quinn's years of toil and wearying labor represents startling fea turea in the way of figures. For instance, assuming a. fair average rate of speed, taken from his best of 10,000 ems and his rate of 5,000 at the present day, gifing 7 500 e'mi for an average, it will be found that the enormous amount of 119,340,000 ems of matter hare been set up by this compositor during the paßt two or three yean more than half a century. In setting this it was necessary to handle over 358,020,000 pieces of metal twice over, meluding the distribution. It would further interest the reader to know that the type so set would weigh 187,700 pounds, or 94 tons, which this old man has lifted piece by piece in the apecified time. In setting type the average distance the hand travels is about a foot and a half, or thereabouts. Conse* anently his band has travelled over g16.000,000 feet, or a matter of 97,727 miles, or within a few hundred feet of being four times the circumference of the earth. This does not include the distribntion, which would increase the distance to about fire and a half times around the globe. "Father" Quinn'e "string" #ould fill about 16,015 columns of space. If stretched out in a continuous line it would form a belt orer two miles wide by over seven miles in solid reading matter. Put these lines in one continuous line and it would extend 120,000 miles.—New York Mail.