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.

Thus the question was early forced upon his consideration, whether he could not devise machinery for the purpose of expediting the production of newspapers.

Instead of 300 impressions an hour, he wanted from 1500 to 2000.

Although such a speed as this seemed quite as chimerical as propelling a ship through the water against wind and tide at fifteen miles an hour, or running a locomotive on a railway at fifty, yet Mr.Walter was impressed with the conviction that a much more rapid printing of newspapers was feasible than by the slow hand-labour process; and he endeavoured to induce several ingenious mechanical contrivers to take up and work out his idea.
The principle of producing impressions by means of a cylinder, and of inking the types by means of a roller, was not new.