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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 1

[miscellaneous paragraphs]

The outbreak of a « gigantic naphtali fountain » is recorded in the foreign telegrams of a contemporary. Jehoshaphat! what next?

An important addition to the literature of typography has been made by Mr Talbot B. Reed, who has brought out in quarto, a History of the Old English Letter Foundries. The work is published at a guinea-and-a-half.

The accidental substitution of a note of exclamation for a period in the announcement that a decoration had been conferred upon Count von Holstein has subjected the proprietors of the Hofer Tageblatt to the confiscation of an entire issue, and an action for libel.

The Napier fire of last December greatly increased in magnitude as the news spread. Locally, the damage was supposed to be under £50,000. In the London papers it was placed at £80,000. In the Scotsman, £110,000. In Paris, Galignani's Messenger stated that half the town was burnt. An Italian paper stated that all the town had been destroyed, and 100 lives lost! Possibly some word of a negative kind had been read as « 100. »

The telegraph, with its indiscriminate use of capitals and small letters, plays grievous havoc with proper names. In the lists of lives lost in the sad Boojum fatality, we find the words « stranger » and « landsman » figuring as « Stranger » and « Lambson. » The London Times not long ago sub-edited a telegram thus: « Mr Edmond Richard Wallace, the only son of Sir Richard Wallace, died of heart-disease while playing at bagatelle in the Bois de Boulogne. » « Bagatelle » was really the name of Sir Richard Wallace's villa.

The cipher « I.H.S. » has, as is well known, more than one interpretation, and it is a disputed point among scholars which is the original. Some recent light has been thrown on the subject. « Mamma, » said a little girl in the Napier cemetery, « what is the meaning of 'I.H.S.' on that grave-stone? » « It means 'I Have Suffered,' my dear, » was the reply.—Fully as ingenious was the Yankee printer, who placed the Roman cipher « S.P.Q.R. » in large letters on the front of his place of business. His interpretation of the historic symbol was: « Small Profits: Quick Returns. »—« R.S.V.P. » has been interpreted, « Remember—Six, Very Punctual. »