84

types and spaces in their appropriate

boxes, almost as fast as you can count.
The journeyman-compositor generally
works by the piece, to use the term cur-

rent in the printing-office. He receives
pay according to the amount of matter

he sets up, Would you like to know

what rule is adopted to ascertain this
amount? Of course it would not do to

make the estimate according to the num-
ber of square inches embraced in his mat-
ter; because there are a great many dif-

ferent sizes of type, and to set a square
inch of Nonpareil, for instance, he must

use double the number of separate let-

ters, that would be necessary in the
same space, if the fount was Pica. So

he adopts another standard. He makes
out his bill according to the number of
ems which he has set up. But very

likely I shall have to explain to you

what is meant by an em. It is a square
of the fount. I will try to make it
plainer still. Suppose the thickness of
a particular fount—the entire measure
of the body of the type from top to
bottom, as it stands in the stick—is just
one eighth of an inch. Then your em
is one eighth of an inch square ; and the
number of ems, or squares, in a line
being ascertained, you multiply that
number into the number of ems, or
squares, which the matter measures the
other way, or lengthwise, and you will
have ‘the number of ems in a page. It
will not do, always, to count the num-
ber of lines in a page, and to multiply
the number of these lines into the num-
ber of ems in each separate line. If a
compositor should measure leaded mat-
ter in this way, he would cheat him-
self; for he is allowed to measure his
leads just ‘as if his matter were solid.

   

THE YOUTH’S CABINET.

So he has a measure, with the ems
marked on it, as inches are marked on a
carpenter’s rule, and uses this in order
to embrace the leads in his estimate.

Leaded matter, other things being
equal, is more desirable than solid.
The compositor can set more ems of
the former than the latter. He is very
fond, too, and for the same reason, of
copy in which the author introduces a
great number of paragraphs ; for, of
course, it does not take so long to put
in quadrats as letters and spaces ; and
in both these instances, he calls the mat-
ter fat. Nothing looks so tasteful, to
his eye, as a page which is generously
Jeaded, and broken up into frequent
paragraphs,

I ought not, perhaps, to spin out my
chapter any longer, though I should
very much like, while I have my hand
in, to tell you something about the pro-
cess of stereotyping. However, you may
consider that branch of the art as on the
table, to be taken up at another time.
But stop a moment. I cannot let you
off, boys and girls, until the compositor
has set up another stickful. There is a
very fine sonnet, from the pen of my
friend William Oland Bourne, on the
Power of the Press, which, if my memo-
ry does not play me false, is just exactly
the thing to serve for a good ending to
this chapter. We must have it printed,
I guess.

A million tongues are thine, and they are heard
Speaking of hope to nations in the prime
Of freedom’s day, to hasten on the time
When the wide world of spirit shall be stirr’d
With higher aims than now—when man shall call
Each man his brother—each shall tell to each
His tale of love, and pure and holy speech
Be music for the soul’s high festival.
_ Thy gentle notes are heard, like choral waves,
eaching the mountain, hill, and quiet vale ;
ae thunder-tones are like the sweeping gale,
Bidding the tribes of men no more be slaves ;
Aud earth’s remotest island bears the sound
That floats on ether wings the earth around.