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Inventions.

Multiple Printing and Binding.—An improvement in the art of making books and pamphlets consists in first imposing a plurality of all the pages required in making a single book; then printing a sheet from them, and folding it into a group of books. The group is then bound along a single line, and trimmed as a whole along its unbound margins. The books are finally separated by a number of cuts less by one than the whole number of books.

The Tennis Stitching Machine.—Mr A. H. Tennis, New York City, sends us a neatly printed pamphlet. The « Tennis » is a sewing machine adapted for pamphlet work. Thread is used, the stitch may be regulated from ⅛-in. to 1 inch; speed, 300 to 700 stitches per minute; capacity 5000 to 7000 books daily; stitches through side or centre; books open perfectly; leaves cannot tear out. The pamphlet is stitched with the machine, and the work is neat and strong.

Ink in Collapsible Tubes.—A good many years ago we wrote to an English trade organ suggesting that the expensive colored inks might be put up, like artists' colors, in collapsible tubes, thus avoiding waste and skinning. According to the Printers' Register for February, German inks thus put up are supplied by German houses, and have a large sale on the Continent and in America—but no firm in Great Britain supplies ink in this way.—The old story of British backwardness to introduce improved methods.

Logotypes.—Marder, Luse, & Co. advertise that they have introduced a system of logotypes, embracing 75 characters, and state that by their use a saving of one-third is effected in time of composition. « The lay of the lower-case has not been disturbed, the boxes having been simply subdivided to accommodate the additional characters. » This is the weak point of the scheme. The number of divisions in the lower-case is increased from 53 to 128, being thirty more boxes than there are in the upper-case.

An Automatic Mailer.—Mr S. C. Thompson, printer, of Manistee, Michican, has invented an ingenious automatic device for addressing newspapers. The contrivance is fixed at the delivery end of the press, and is connected by tapes and an iron rod with the cylinder-shaft. As the printed paper leaves the cylinder it is conveyed to the mailer and addressed before passing on to the fly or folding machine as the case may be. Every revolution of the cylinder moves the galley containing the names the necessary distance so that the papers may be addressed consecutively by the machine.

Brass Hair-spaces.—These long-desired conveniences have (according to the Tidning för Boktryckarkonst,) been manufactured by the house of J. K. Beck, Nuremberg. The prices vary from about 4s per lb for nonpareil to 3s 3d for two-line great primer. Some time during the next ten years English founders may follow suit. At present (with the exception of Miller & Richard) they appear to have abandoned hair-spaces altogether, and cast for the larger bodies nothing thinner than a four-to-pica. Until a « self-spacing » system is introduced, all large founts should have at least three spaces below the thin—say ¼, 1/6, and ⅛ pica. A line of two-line great primer could then be justified without the aid of paper and a pair of scissors. But the thinner spaces should be of brass.

Backing Electrotype Shells.—Paper and Press describes a new patent method of backing, completely obviating the necessity of expensive machinery, and which is, moreover, very rapid, without in any way weakening the plate. After tinning, the shell is taken and a backing applied, either by dipping into a kettle of lead or other suitable material, or pouring the molten metal upon the shell; then at once scraping off the bottom with a straight-edged rule or other eqùivalent device, producing a perfectly smooth and even surface, and leaving no more metal on the shell than suffices to fill the depressions and render the back smooth. The shells thus backed are practically as thin and pliable as before, their weight increases only about two ounces in a 20-inch news column, and they may be cut into required lengths with scissors almost as easily as paper.