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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 6

Trade Exchanges

page 89

Trade Exchanges.

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.

Trade Lists and Samples.

Furnival & Co., Reddish Iron Works, near Stockport, and 32 St. Bride-st., Ludgate Circus, London.—This celebrated firm of printers' engineers send us their latest catalogue, large 8vo., bound in blue cloth. It contains an illustrated price list of gas engines, printing machines, guillotines, rolling machines, and all the other principal machines used by printers and bookbinders. It contains a full cipher index for ordering, covering not only every article named in the book, with or without accessories, but also any date or sum of money. The book is beautifully printed, on fine paper, and possesses an unusual advantage over most catalogues of its class—it is of handy size, and stands conveniently on a bookshelf. Broad catalogues, with paper covers, that require to be stacked, are not always accessible when required.

The Pahiatua Star says: The following account was sent to a well-known factory man by a Woodville doctor:— « To searching for fragments of your body in the vicinity of Ngawapurua bridge, 15s. »

The following is Tennyson's last poem. He dictated it on his deathbed to Lady Tennyson, by whom it was set to music; and it was one of the anthems sung at the funeral, the other being « Crossing the Bar. »

Silent Voices.
When the dumb hour, clothed in black,
Brings the dreams about my bed,
Call me not so often back,
Silent voices of the dead,
Towards the lowland ways behind me,
And the sunlight that is gone.
Call me, rather, silent voices,
Forward to the starry track;
Glimmering up the heights behind me,
On, and always on.

Mr Baring-Gould, the well-known novelist, is 59 years of age. He belongs to an old Devonshire family, and is Rector of Lew-Trenchard. Strangely enough, he wrote something like thirty or forty books on religious subjects and folk-lore before he won celebrity as a novelist. Indeed, he only discovered his talent in this field when well advanced in life.