Printing is perhaps the greatest of all the arts of civilization, and the libraries and newspapers of the Nineteenth Century attest its value. If Benjamin Franklin could wake from his long sleep and enter the composing rooms of our great dailies, and witness the imposing array of linotype machines, more resembling a machine shop than a printing office, and then visit the press room and see the avalanche of finished papers flying at the rate of 1,600 a minute, neatly folded, and counted for delivery, he would doubtless be overwhelmed with emotions of wonder and incredulity, for broad-minded man as he was, he could have no conception of such progress. CHAPTER XIV. THE TYPEWRITER. OLD ENGLISH TYPEWRITER OF 1714--THE BURT TYPEWRITER OF 1829-- PROGIN’S FRENCH MACHINE OF 1833--THURBER’S PRINTING MACHINE OF 1843--THE BEACH TYPEWRITER--THE SHOLES TYPEWRITER, THE FIRST OF THE MODERN FORM, COMMERCIALLY DEVELOPED INTO THE REMINGTON--THE CALIGRAPH--SMITH-PREMIER--THE BOOK TYPEWRITER AND OTHERS. Occupying an intermediate place between the old-fashioned scribe and the printer, the typewriter has in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century established a distinct and important avocation, and has become a necessary factor in modern business life. Chirography, or hand writing, reflecting, as it did, the idiosyncrasies of each writer, was not only slow, but when employed was, in most cases, in the haste and press of active business reduced to an illegible scrawl. For the use of reporters and others requiring extra speed, stenography, or short hand, was resorted to, but there was a distinct need for some easy, quick, legible, and uniform record of the busy man’s correspondence and copy work, and this the modern typewriter has supplied. Like most other important inventions, the typewriter did not spring into existence all at once, for while the practical embodiment in really useful machines has only taken place since about 1868, there had been many experiments and some success attained at a much earlier date. The British patent to Henry Mills. No. 395 of 1714, is the earliest record of efforts in this direction. At this early date no drawings were attached to patents, and the specification dwells more on the function of the machine than the instrumentalities employed. No record of the construction of this machine remains in existence, and it may fairly be considered a lost art. In quaint and old-fashioned English, the patent specification proceeds as follows: