THE METHOD OP PRINTING.
The workmen employed in this art are compositors and pressmen. The first are those persons whose business it is to range and dispose the letters into words, lines, pages, &c. The pressmen are those who, properly speaking, are the printers, as they take off the impressions from the letters after they are prepared for that purpose by the compositors. The types being provided fur the compositor, he distributes each kind, or sort, by itself, into small cells or boxes, made in two wooden frames, called the cases ; the upper-case and the lower-case. The cells in the are ninety-eight in num ber; those of the lower case are fitly four.
The upper-case contains two alphabets of capitals ; large, or full capitals, and small capitals. They also contain cells for the figures, the accented letters, the characters used in references to notes, &c.; and one cell, being a middle one in the bottom row, for the small letter k. The capitals in this case are disposed alpha betically.
The lower-case is appropriated to the small letters,the double letters, the points, parentheses, spaces, and quadrats. The boxes of the lower-case are of different sizes; the largest being for the letters most in use; but the arrangement is not in this in. stance alphabetical, those letters oftenest wanted being placed nearest to the compo sitor's hand. As there is nothing on the outside of the boxes to denote the letters they respectively contain, it is curious to observe the dexterity manifested by the compositor in finding and taking up the letters, as he wants them, from the differ ent cells. Each case is placed in an in clined direction, that the compositor may reach the upper-case with ease.
The instrument in which the letters are set is called a composing-stick, which con sists of a long plate of brass or iron, on the side of which arises a ledge, which runs the whole length of the plate, and serves to support the letters, the sides of which are to rest against it. Along this ledge is a row of holes, for introducing a screw to lengthen or shorten the line, by mov ing the sliders farther from, or nearer to, the shorter ledge at the end of the corn posing stick. Where marginal notes are
required, the two sliding pieces are open ed to a proper distance from each other. Bethre the compositor begins to compose, he puts a thin slip of brass plate, called a rule, cut to the length of the line, and of the same height as the letter, in the composing stick, parallel with the ledge, against which the letters are intended to bear. The compositor being thus fur nished with an instrument suited to hold the letters as they are arranged into words, lines, &c. he places his copy on the upper-case, just before him, and hold ing the stick in his left hand, his thumb being over the slider, with the right takes up the letters, spaces,' &c. one by one, and places them against the rule, while lie supports them with his left thumb, by pressing them against the slider, the other hand being constantly employed in setting in other letters. Having in this manner composed a line, he takes the brass rule from behind it, and places it before the letters of which it is composed, and proceeds to compose another line in the same manner. But before he re moves the brass rule, he notices whe ther the line ends with a complete word, or with an entire syllable of a word, in cluding the hyphen that is put to denote the division, when a word is divided into syllables. If he finds that his words ex actly fill the measure, lie has nothing more to (la with that line, but proceeds with the next. But if he finds the mea sure not entirely filled at the ending of a word or syllable, he puts io more spaces, diminishing the distances between the words, until the measure is full ; and this operation, which is called justififing, is done in order that all the lines in the com posing stick may be of equal length. Much depends upon exactness in justi and great care is taken by expert compositors that the lines are neither too closely wedged into the composing stick, nor yet loose and uneven.