By the advice of
counsel, he had twenty-one of the conspirators apprehended and
tried, and nineteen of them were found guilty and condemned to
various periods of imprisonment. From that moment combination
was at an end in Printing House Square.
Mr. Walter's greatest achievement was his successful application
of steam power to newspaper printing. Although he had greatly
improved the mechanical arrangements after he took command of the
paper, the rate at which the copies could be printed off remained
almost stationary. It took a very long time indeed to throw off,
by the hand-labour of pressmen, the three or four thousand copies
which then constituted the ordinary circulation of The Times. On
the occasion of any event of great public interest being reported
in the paper, it was found almost impossible to meet the demand
for copies. Only about 300 copies could be printed in the hour,
with one man to ink the types and another to work the press,
while the labour was very severe. Thus it took a long time to
get out the daily impression, and very often the evening papers
were out before The Times had half supplied the demand.
Mr. Walter could not brook the tedium of this irksome and
laborious process. To increase the number of impressions, he
resorted to various expedients. The type was set up in
duplicate, and even in triplicate; several Stanhope presses were
kept constantly at work; and still the insatiable demands of the
newsmen on certain occasions could not be met.
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