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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 6

[section]

Caslon's Circular No. 62 is an interesting number. The first article gives a copy of a curious old bill of lading of 1777. An article on the point system covers a letter from Marder, Luse, & Co., congratulating the Caslon Foundry on being the first to introduce it at home; but finding fault with the inch as a basis. It makes one smile to find a leading American house stating that the English inch « is an uncertain quantity, quite as much as the pica was before the adoption of the point system. » It is comical, too, to find it recommending the beautiful fraction ⅜ ⅝, theoretically adopted by the American houses, and saying that in this « we have at the bottom of the whole structure something that is absolutely reliable — a fixed standard. » They omit to say that in introducing the reform, they took the standard English inch as their basis, and 1/72-inch as their unit, and only abandoned this rational system when compelled by the pressure of wealthier houses, who had large vested interests in an anomalous body of pica. They also omit to refer to the very important fact that the standards of the various American foundries do not agree, and even in the case of the houses which bear the greatest reputation for accuracy, there are variations among their « point » borders sufficient to affect the justification. In a recent number of the American Art Printer, a correspondent wrote bitterly complaining of the inaccuracies of the point types. The best that can be said is that they approximate much more closely than when every founder had his own scheme. « If any measurement can be said to be certain and unalterably defined by ancient usage and carefully preserved standards, surely the English inch may be so considered. » So says Caslon, and he is right. He goes on to say: « The theoretical standard for pica adopted by the illustrious founder of our house was 6 to the inch, 72 to the foot, and to this standard he adhered as closely as his appliances permitted. To this day, the same standard is in operation in our foundry, and thanks to the superior modern appliances at our command, it is closely adhered to. » It would have been fair to have said that it had been considerably changed in the interval. Mr Marder's letter was called forth by a fierce attack on the point system in the B. and C. Printer and Stationer. That paper having dropped its exchange, we have not seen the article.

The Allgemeiner Anzeiger for 29th September contains an interesting series of comparative tables from Spamer's Illustrated Conversations - Lexicon, showing archaic alphabets, Runes, Gothic and Anglo-Saxon alphabets, and various Asiatic forms.

Our Language, published by Mr F. A. Fernald, 3 Bond-st., New York, comes to us this month as an exchange. It is a monthly organ of spelling-reform, and is not unkrown to us, copies having been already sent to us privately by American friends. As a record of experiments in this direction—some very crude—and of progress, it is valuable. We note that a foreigner named Klüh, of Chicago, has published a book in English with an alphabet of 45 letters, the effect of which must be peculiar, as some of his signs are inverted; others from Greek, Russian, and Arabic, the latter looking, we should think, extremely « kenspeckle. » But his knowledge of pronounciation must be imperfect, for with the large number of 45 letters, he makes a single sign do duty for the hard and soft th. An article on letters for diphthongs strongly condemns the use of single signs for compound sounds as wrong in principle, and confusing; and condemns it as « not spelling, but abbreviation, or syllabic writing. » There is, we think, a little confusion here. We have a fancy that the ultimate form in which our language will be written in time to come may be with single signs, not only for diphthongs, but for all double or triple groups of consonants. This would not be syllabic writing, but would be a better picture of speech than the ideal phonetics, which would resolve all compound sounds into their elements. The value of these compound signs has long been proved in shorthand. The number of signs would be less than are now in use in logotypy, each English syllable would be represented by, at the most, three signs, or an average of two; and by this plan alone, could consonants beginning a syllable be clearly distinguished from those ending it, as a compound sign would never be used to unite the end of one syllable with the beginning of the next (as, for example, is now done in such a case as the name 'Knoflach.') The saving of space in book-printing would be enormous, and poetry, especially, would be composed with a neatness and regularity otherwise impossible.