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On the economy of machinery and manufactures / by Charles Babbage
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TIIE APPLICATION OP MACHINERY.

215

establishment is the most economical method ofaccomplishing the object.

(250.) There are, however, many cases in whichmachines or tools must be made, where economicalproduction is not the most important object. When-ever it is required to produce a few articles,partsof machinery, for instance, which must be executedwith the most rigid accuracy or be perfectly alike,-it becomes nearly impossible to fulfil this condition,even with the aid of the most skilful hands. In suchcircumstances, it is necessary to make tools expresslyfor the purpose, although those tools should, as fre-quently happens, cost more in constructing than thethings they are destined to make.

(251.) Another instance of the just application ofmachinery, even at an increased expense, arises wherethe shortness of time in which the article can be pro-duced, has an important influence on its value. Inthe publication of our daily newspapers, it frequentlyhappens that the debates in the Houses of Parlia-ment are carried on to three and four oclock inthe morning, that is, to within a very few hours ofthe time for the publication of the newspaper. Thespeeches must be taken down by reporters, conveyedby them to the establishment of the newspaper, per-haps at the distance of one or two miles, transcribedby them in the office, set up by the compositor, thepress corrected, and the papers be printed off anddistributed before the public can read them. Someof these Journals have a circulation of from five toten thousand daily. Supposing four thousand to bewanted, and that they could be printed only at therate of five hundred per hour upon one side of the