MISCELLANEOUS

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 116, 28 April 1870, Page 7

MISCELLANEOUS

! QITOITINO CII.VMPIO>*SUIP OF G\RE\T Britain. — On Monday, Kobert Walkinshaw, of Alexandria, Scotland, and George Graham, of London, played a match at quoits at Mr Melaugh's Quoiting Ground, Glasgow, for tlie championship of Great Britain and £100. a-sida. According to the articles, the game was to be won «of SI points up, 18 yards distance, Sh inch quoits, stiff sticking clay ends, pins level with clay, clay cleared away at measurement, and quoits nearest top of pin only t) c^unt. The Scotchman was trained at Alexandria, Murray, of Carron, playing with him his trial games ; and Graham took his breathings at London, and arrived in Glasgow last Wednesday night, since which he has met with a good reception faorn all classes of sporting men. Betting about a month previous to the match was at evens, but at the end of the week slight odds were offered on Walkinshaw, and one bet was then made— £2s to £20— that the Scotchman would provo the victor by at least eight shots. Before beginning the game, speculation was dull at 6 to -i on Walkinshaw. The game began at 10.-10 a.in., and linisfced at 5.10 p.m. utter darkness; aul throughout the play was magnificent. At the only time the game was equal was at t!ie twelfth head, when they stood seven each, as Walkinshaw afterwards never allowed his opponent to get too near and won by a majority of 26 shots, the final scores being — Walkinshaw, 81; Graham, 53. The weather was dry, there wei*e about 5000 spectators present. Ml* J. T. Ferguson, of London, effieiated as i*efered, to the satisfaction of both parfcbs. — "Sportsman." A new printing machins — tho quickest and most complete newspaper rnr.ehine that has ever boon invented — lias been perfected by the proprietor and manager of the " Times." Its wondrous powers of production render it worthy of a " nots." In one hour this machine can print 11,000 perfect newspapers — a number ?imch larger than can be produced by the fastest American machine, ami, strangely enough, up to the present time, the Americans have " licked creation " with their printing machinery. The "Times" machine does not iv the least resemble any existing printing machine. It looks, at the printing end, like a collection of small cylinders or rollers. The paper mounted on a liaise reel as it comes from the paper mill, goes in at one end in au endless web, 3300 yards in length, seems to fly through amongst the cylinders, aud issues forth at the other in two descending torrents of sheets, accurately cut into lengths, and printed on both sides. As the sheet parses inwards it is damped on one side by being carried rapidly over a cylinder which revolves in a trough of cold water ; it then passes on to the first pair of printing and impression cylinders, where, printed on one side, it is next reserved and bent through the second pair, where it is printed on the other side ; then it passes on the cutting cylinders, which divide the web of now printed paper into the proper lengths. The sheets are rapidly conducted by tapes into a swing frame, which, as it vibrates, delivers them alternately on either side, in two apparently continuous streams of sheets, ; which are rapidly thrown forward from the frame by a rocker, aud deposited on tables at which the lads sit to receive them. This is suroly the perfection of printing machinery. If ' the Thunderer " should now raduce its price to twopence — and this has been rumoured recently — it will geb plenty of work for its new machinery. — " Sportsman." Ingenious Intention. — One of tho most ingenioas Yankee notions introduced into this colony for some time past says the Melbourne Age is a novel invention entitled the American Eubber Stamp, which has been brought over by Ml- Arthur Lyster from San Francisco, where it has proved a great success. The invention consists in the application of an elastic indiarubberstamp, on which any required design has been engraved, to all the purposes to which an ordinary metal hand stamp is applicable, and to a great many for which the metal stamp is useless. For instance, owing to the elasticity of the surface, of the stamp it can accommodate itself to any irregular from our uneven surface, giving as perfect an impression of the device as though the surface were perfectly plane and true. In addition to this it will stamp around a sharp angle, such, for instance, as the corner of a box, with just the same facility as it would on a sheet of paper. T'hs principle on which the invention is baaed is decidedly new, all printing surfaces hitherto fouud of surface being rigid, ono of the essentail features being hardness, while in the rubber stanio just in proportion to its elasticity is its special value. Among the principal advantages which the uew stamp possesses in addition to that referred to is the fact that it does not indent the surface on which the impression is made. As the cost of these stamps is consider-ably-less than fiat of metal ones, while in point of durability they are said to bo nearly equal, thero is little doubt but that when the invention is better known it will in a great measure supersede the old description of hand stamps,, in those multifarious purposes for which they are employed by those I engaged in trade.