A victorian typewriter; you can see that in this photograph the “W” key is partly depressed, and, in order to cheer it up, the type, on a metal loop, is descending from the left of the typewriter toards the ribbon and the roller. Some letters would come down from the left and some from the right.
I am told by someone who owns one of these (and which wsa still in use 100 years later) that the base is made from heavy cast-iron.