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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 6

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A melancholy interest attaches to the March-April number of the Artist Printer, for the same mail brings news of the death of its editor and proprietor, Mr A. C. Cameron. On p. 367 there is an apology for delay, « arising from the fact that after many disappointments it has been established in its own office. » On p. 379 the editor writes: « We trust our subscribers and patrons will forgive whatever shortcomings appear in the present number, as it has been edited from a sick-bed and we have been unable to give it that personal supervision which we otherwise would have done, and which has caused, in the main, the delay in the publication. » Whether the publication of the paper will be continued now that the active brain and busy hands of the moving spirit are at rest remains to be seen.—In the same issue we read of a very interesting old wooden press lately found stowed in the loft of an old barn at Windsor, Vermont, which is believed to be the one set up and used by Stephen Doyle, at Cambridge, Mass., in 1638, and on which, nearly a hundred and fifty years later, was printed the first newspaper in Vermont. The interesting relic is now in possession of the Vermont Historical Society, and will probably be exhibited at the World's Fair. There is also the portrait of Gracie Calman, a pretty little Boston girl, two months short of four years old, « the youngest type-setter in the world. » She can set reprint copy « like a veteran comp, makes very clean proofs, and has accomplished 300 ems in a day. »

The French correspondence of the Stationery Trades Journal is, as usual, very interesting. In the last letter (25th May), the writer says: « French newspapers rarely, if ever, copy from one another. There are two reasons for this. The first is, that contributors are paid so little that there is small inducement for copying from other papers. The second and more cogent reason is, that it is open to any paper which has an article cribbed to employ the police to seize the whole issue of a journal which has copied any important matter. Only a fortnight ago the New York Herald was seized for using an initial block that was the property of an advertiser who had sent it for his own puff, and naturally objected to seeing it used for other people's reclames.

The Journal für Buchdruckerkunst is rough on English job-printers. It says that they buy the German combinations, but that their art-printing is a « parody » of the German. Two awful examples are reproduced in column 513—a light border with the corner stupidly reversed, and a medley consisting of the solid Florentine combination, set hap-hazard in rows as a groundwork, surrounded by a Gothic border with Rococo corners. For the past five years, Typo has been steadily pounding away on this very subject; yet we regret to say that colonial printers are daily perpetrating atrocities such as those which are criticised in our Hamburg contemporary.

In the December number of the Typographic Messenger, Messrs Conner's Sons retort on the Western house that lately complained of its original designs being imitated without being improved. In parallel columns are shown Old-style Title Condensed, patented in 1876 by Conner, and Old-style Bold, a heavier imitation, 1883; Volunteer, patented by A. David, Paris, bought by Conner in 1880, and Rococo, a close imitation, somewhat lighter in face, 1883; and Egyptian Extra Condensed, Conner, 1878, with an imitation so close that it is difficult to see difference. In the case of the Rococo, it is strange how the imitation holds the field as against the original, there being no perceptible improvement in the face. We value articles of this kind—not that we feel much interest in the disputes of rival houses, but that we like to get hold of precise facts and dates in relation to type designs. Which reminds us that we have specimen-books, more or less recent, from every large American foundry save two—Messrs Conner's Sons and Farmer, Little, & Co. We are sorry to find fault with Brother Blue, the editor, but he has spoiled our file of the Messenger. ؟How is the binder to deal with a number like this, consisting of folio, quarto, and octavo pages on the same sheet? The present issue, starting a new volume, is beautifully printed in black and red, and tastefully decorated with borders and small ornaments.

In the new number of Our Occasional, the Cincinnati Foundry displays with fine effect its beautiful body-letter, and the advertising pages exhibit the admirable borders of the foundry, used with proper moderation and with unexceptionable taste.