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Trade Exchanges.

With the July number the American Art Printer completes its fourth volume, and a handsome volume it makes. The May issue contained a piece of presswork which reflects great credit on the ingenious pressman of the establishlishment, Mr William H. Ryan. It is a picture in many colors and shades, the subject being « The Village Beau. » The peculiarity of the job is that the whole effects were produced in two impressions from one block, without cutting or marring it in any way. It was a puzzle to most of the readers, and until the two impressions were shown separately in the July number, many doubted that it could have been done as described. Yet the process was as simple as it was ingenious, though in the hands of any one but an artist it must have been a failure. The first impression was worked in four simple colors and two compounds formed by blending, besides two bands of tint, produced by introducing white. They were worked in bands, rainbow fashion, obliquely across the page. Of course a great variety of shades were produced where the colors blended. By the use of a very thick overlay all parts of the picture not intended to show were cut out without touching the block. The second impression was in a uniform light sepia brown, and here again certain parts of the subject were stopped out. So deftly were the colors blended, and so completely did the second impression conceal the method, that no one, at first sight, would suppose the plate to have been worked in two printings.—In the December number the editor has a timely protest against the common practice of neglecting good job-faces just because they are a few years old, and replacing them by styles whose sole merit is their novelty. The A.A.P. has its weak points. In the last issue we are sorry to see half-a-dozen orthographic lapses.

Several copies have reached us of the Graphische Anzeiger, a Nürnberg trade organ, with a neatly engraved heading. There was something very familiar in its appearance, and it proved on examination to be Karl Kempe's polyglot Stereotypeur under a new title, which is intended to indicate the wider field that the paper is henceforth to occupy.

In a back number of the Litho Art Journal we note a criticism on a remark of ours as to the British standard inch being preferable to the nondescript American « point » as the basis of type-measurement. Says our contemporary: « It would be a queer reform to give up the metrical system for the old moss-covered English system, in whatever line it may be. » We have every respect for the L. A. Journal's judgment in matters relating to the art of Senefelder; but on the subject of type- or any other standards, it is all at sea. ؟Would it surprise our contemporary to know that the American point has no relation to the metric system at all? As was first pointed out in our own pages, it is derived from the point of Fournier (1737), which in its turn was based on a « moss-covered » French inch-and-foot scale, now long obsolete. As regards the vaunted metric system, it is arbitrary and unscientific to an absurd degree. The rectilineal scale on which it is based is taken from the measurement of a curve—the arc of an arbitrarily-chosen and purely local meridian; the measurement itself is now known to have been erroneous; and the mètre bears no commensurable relation to any other known standard, natural or artificial.—The Journal has now completed its first year, and gives its subscribers and supporters its benediction. It is a well-conducted paper, has every appearance of health and strength, and we hope that a long career of usefulness lies before it.

The Printers' Bulletin, the organ of the Boston Foundry, under the head of « Deliberate Robbery, » illustrates the method in which its original ideas have been imitated. It shows the original « Rubens, » side-by-side with two imitations which are not improvements, and also its « Façade » with a debased copy. It is only paying the penalty exacted from all originators, and which has been defined as the sincerest flattery.—The July number contains good portraits of four well-known members of the Craft in the United States.

The Australian Shorthand Journal, in completing its first volume, announces that it has withdrawn from the field, its mission —to assist in the formation of a Victorian Reporters' Association—having been accomplished. Should it ever re-appear, it will be in altered form. It heads its valedictory article with the enigmatical words, « Gone! Mate! » ؟Does the second word mean « partner, » or the Arabic mate in chess, or the equivalent Polynesian maté, « dead »?

The laurel-crowned lady with the bare shoulder who has sat at case for the past eight years on the cover of the Inland Printer has retired, and her place is taken by a vigorous youth, clad in little else than nature's garb, who holds a shield in his left hand, while with his right he bears aloft a flaming torch. There is no change in the style of the interior. The Inland Printer not only maintains its high standard, but steadily progresses.

Paper and Press is publishing, as a special feature of the current volume, a beautiful series in colors of facsimiles of celebrated bindings, ancient and modern.

The Printing Times, after a long and honorable career, is now merged in the Lithographer, to be published by a company. It will be under the same able editorial control as at present. It is the sole representative of the lithographic art in Great Britain; but is soon to have a rival, Mr Robert Hilton being about to start a litho organ, uniform with the British Printer.