The cylinder press was developed at about the same time as the iron hand press, but was more difficult to use, considerably more expensive, and only paid its way in an office that did a great deal of printing, though there were smaller ones run by a hand-turned crank. The description of the operation that accompanied this engraving in 1838 assumed that the cylinder press needed three operators, one man and two boys, a clear suggestion of the continued use of apprentices as cheap labour. Power came from the central shaft, which could run as many presses as the shop required. The type bed ran back and forth under a series of inking rollers that were themselves inked automatically from ink ducts. The paper was laid on by hand and guided by tapes around and through a series of cylinders which smoothed it, moved it along its course to the first and then the second impression cylinder (H and L), and finally ejected it to the "taking-off boy", who stacked it. Running well, the press could do practically a thousand sheets an hour, perfected, that is printed on both sides, eight times the rate of the hand press, which required a crew of two men. They did not always work well and the make-ready was a long process needing great skill. The anonymous author in 1838 remarked that such presses commonly used stereotype plates instead of types formes, which suggests again that their main use was for very wide publication. The hand under cylinder (K) seems to be a joke on the part of the block engraver, as the author never mentions it. Loss of fingers and hands was a common accident. It could, however, merely be meant to show some stop-press adjustment of the tapes or the clearing from the press of crumpled sheets.
