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Type Standards.

By this time we have dealt with all the leading features of this subject, the practical importance of which can scarcely be overrated, and have placed before our readers valuable tables for purposes of comparison. The present article, therefore, will be chiefly recapitulatory.

1.	In the earlier instances, the sizes of types were arbitrary, and bore no relation to each other in either of their dimensions. This was natural, in the infancy of the art.
2.	The first attempts at systematic relation were all based on the inch and foot—a duodecimal scale—and were duodecimally divided.
3.	The first element of divergence was owing to the inch of different countries varying.
4.	Other causes of divergence were accidental deviations which become persistent, and intentional variations, often insisted on by printers and authors.
5.	All the varied systems co-exist to the present day.
6.	In recent times further perplexity has been occasioned by the introduction of two systems—the geometrical proportions of Bruce, and the vicesimal system of Shanks, which, except in occasional points of contact, do not conform to any other system.
7.	Though the contrary is sometimes alleged, the foreign metrical scale is not the basis of any existing scheme.
8.	A system originally based upon the inch has been forced into occasional contact with the metric scale (or has been found to coincide with it at given points), but the relation has no practical value, and tends only to confusion.
9.	The system now coming into general use in the United States is not based upon any recognized standard, but comes within a very close approximation to the English inch-and-foot scale.
10.	To make that system practically perfect, so far as body relationships are concerned, it requires to be modified only by increasing the unit in the proportion of ·004, which would make six picas = one inch, and the point = 1/72-inch.
11.	This latter is the exact scale which the Caslon Foundry claims to have adopted.
12.	To perfect the scheme, the point system should be extended to the width of all letters and characters, making every fount « self-spacing »—a very minute duodecimal fraction of pica being taken as the unit.

Our second point will be found to be correct on examination. Fournier and Didot both took the inch and foot as their base, though they adopted different standards. As we have already mentioned, there are twenty-five standard inches in various parts of Europe, representing seventeen slightly varying linear values.

Our seventh point will probably also be challenged. Mr Shanks says «Didot adopted as his prototype or typometer, a definite portion of the meter, and thus brought typefounders under the new French decimal system of measurement.» This affords one instance of the difficulty of obtaining correct data. Mr Shanks is here in direct conflict with Mr DeVinne, who says « Didot selected the royal foot of France. His system is imperfect in its selection of a disused measure as its basis. It is at complete variance with the meter in every part. » And Mr DeVinne's thorough acquaintance with the subject and well-known accuracy induce us to accept his statement as correct.

Nevertheless there are points of contact. We have only to follow any two systems far enough to find a point where they agree, or come within an infinitesimal degree of difference. Every day the job compositor finds accidental and unexpected coincidences between discrepant bodies. So we find in the elaborate table on p. 44 that 133 Cicero is reckoned as=60 centimeters. Messrs Schelter & Giesecke say: « The German system of interchangeable bodies is based upon the imperial German standard, the meter (=39·37 inches). 1 meter =1000 millimeter; 300 millimeter=798 typographical points. » Now both these are professedly to the Didot point= 1/72 of the old French inch. That is a fraction of practical use; but what shall we say of 60/133 and 300/798? And how can a system which can only shew such farfetched relations as these be said to be « based » on the metric system? It is the same with MacKellar's « metrical » fraction of 35/83. According to DeVinne, the oldest «point» of all, Fournier's, has an accidental relationship with the meter quite as striking as any of these. He says: « The accident that 100 parts of Fournier correspond with 35 millimeters leads to no practical result: 35 millimeters cannot be used as a scale or measure for subdivision. » And this brings us to a really remarkable, and apparently quite accidental coincidence:

MacKellar's steel rod of 83 ems pica is 35 centimeters in length. This is exactly 1000 Fournier points. So that the new American scale may really be said to be based on the Fournier point, the oldest system of all, and founded on an obsolete French inch.^*

DeVinne says there was no systematic scheme of type bodies before the 18th century. Pica in Moxon's time (1683) was much smaller than now=75 lines to the foot. In 1770 (Luckombe) it ran 71½. In 1824 (Hansard) it was 73¼. Seventeen years later, according to Savage, three out of the four foundries cast pica 72 to the foot, and the fourth (Figgins) 72½. Two or three years ago, when Austin Wood measured the various bodies, he found four different picas, varying from 71 to 71⅞.

Thus we find that while the duodecimal fraction of 72 to the foot was in general use fifty years ago, and that all continental bodies were based upon a parallel system, the only «metrical» relationships discoverable are these:

—So that taking any system we choose, we come always to the inch and foot at last. Even in Bruce's geometrical scale, we find the agate, small pica, double small pica, and meridian series run 160, 80, 40, and 20 lines to the foot respectively.

In conclusion we will refer briefly to the reform now in progress— that of the self-spacing type, originated, both as regards arithmetical and geometrical progression, by Messrs Benton, Waldo, & Co.^† The former system they have abandoned in favor of the latter, which certainly theoretically is by far the best. But practically it is open to the same serious objection as Bruce's system of bodies. The spaces, dashes, braces, fractions, &c., of different founts on the same body must be kept apart as carefully as the sorts from different foundries have to be at present. Composition, either in lines or columns, is a process of simple addition by units, and as no builder could erect a house or even a wall if his bricks and stones differed in regular geometric ratio, neither can job composition be satisfactorily carried out on the same principle. No matter how small the arithmetical unit adopted may be, it will be impossible to maintain the same proportion throughout the different sizes of type—in some cases a point or character would be the same width as one larger or smaller, and in other cases slightly expanded or contracted. Nevertheless, Messrs B. W. & Co. succeeded in producing founts working satisfactorily to 13 ems, by using a unit of 1/156 of that measure. Had the unit been 1/156,=1/12 pica or the typographic point, the type would have spaced to any page 94even pica or nonpareil measure. By reducing the unit to 1/24 pica, or the half-point—which would be quite possible, with the delicate measuring instruments at the command of the typefounders, it would be possible to space any kind of work with absolute accuracy to 1/72 inch either length-or breadthwise, and though the perfect uniform proportions of the present self-spacing type would be sacrificed, the unit would be sufficiently small to prevent distortion.

Mr O'Donnell has rushed in where Parnell feared to tread, and has sued The Times for libel—damages £50,000. This is just what The Times has wanted, and the public will look with interest for one of the most important press cases of modern days. Messrs Parnell and O'Connor have both been summoned as witnesses.—We are not surprised to read in a late telegram that the «League» is imploring Mr O'Donnell to withdraw his action.—Sir John Pope Hennessey has also taken action against the Thunderer—damages £20,000.