PRINTING AND BOOKMAKING,
 

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is eleven points. The system in France now is to have
pearl on 5 or 5)^; nonpareil, 6 or 6)^ ; minion or brevier,
7 or 1% ; bourgeois, 8 or 83^ ; long primer, 9; small pica,
10; pica, 11; and Enghsh, 12.

_ In 1843, as we learn from an article contributed by
James Cooper to the Printers' Review, Laurent & De-
berney, founders of Paris, adopted as a basis 100 points,
equal to 35 millimetres, which again increased the sizes
proportionately; the plan, however, did not meet with
much favor. Meanwhile the German founders were seek¬
ing for more uniformity, and about 1840 several of them
attempted to improve on the system in vogue; but all
lacked a fixed and certain basis, as none of them agreed
exactly with the legal standard of measurement. The
first effort at systematization in Austria was made in
1841 by the director of the national printing-office in Yi¬
enna, who adopted as a standard twenty-three Ciceros to
four Yiennese inches. About the same time Gottlieb
Haase of Prague divided the Yiennese inch into eighty-
six units (each about equal to two points American), and
gave to each body a certain number of these units.

When the French founder Charles Derriey brought
out his celebrated combination borders in 1830 they were
received with great favor, and the perfect accuracy with
which the various pieces united to form a single design
caused the German founders to think seriously over the
advantages of a plan that would permit the use of all
kinds of ornaments in combination, and finally caused
several of them to adopt Didot's system definitely. They
needed, however, an exact standard as a basis, as there
was a perceptible difference in sizes even among the
French foundries; but instead of getting together and
unifying the Didot system each one went on in his own
way, some procuring typometers from France, while
others were satisfied in adjusting their matrices to letters
procured from that country. The result was so much
confusion that it was said there were several Didot sys¬
tems. It is to the introduction of the combination bor¬
ders into this country that the anomalous size generally
known as minionette is due. As these borders were cut
to Cicero and its multiples that body was necessarily re¬
tained, as the strikes or copies could not be adjusted to
the pica standard ; and many of these borders still show
the variations just mentioned, much to the grief of the
compositor who tries to use quadrats and spaces of two
different fonts together. This difficulty was finally reme¬
died by a number of the leading founders, under the
leadership of Hermann Berthold, adopting in 1878 a
standard based on the metric system. For this purpose
the aid of the director of the Observatory of Berlin was
called in, and it was settled with exactness that 133 non¬
pareils should equal 798 points, or 30 centimetres. This
reform was accepted, and each founder concerned fur¬
nished himself with a standard typometer and regulated
his sizes to correspond. The others soon found it to
their advantage to drop into line and accept Berthold's
reform, which was not very difficult, as there were really
but slight variations in the matrices. Since 1879, then,
the German typographers and all others using the Didot
system have a uniform standard based on the metric sys¬
tem, which is now the standard of measurement in near¬
ly all civilized countries, except Great Britain and the
United States. There is, indeed, an accidental coinci¬
dence between a certain size in the metric system and a
certain number of American points; but this was not
known at the beginning, and the parity was purely acci¬
dental. Of the new body 83 picas equal 35 centimetres,
and 15 picas equal 14 Ciceros.

Reformation in England and America proceeded very
slowly. Fergusson, an English printer, in the early part
of the century proposed that nonpareil should be made
the standard, twelve lines measuring an inch. Fourteen
lines of nonpareil were to be the common measure for
all other fonts; this measure to take in five lines of great
primer, six of English, seven of pica, eight of small pica,
nine of long primer, ten of bourgeois, eleven of brevier
 

and twelve of minion. This is a very close approxima¬
tion to type as it is now made on the old system. English,
pica and small pica were a little enlarged; long primer
and brevier were a little diminished. The next move¬
ment forward was made in 1822 by George Bruce, whose
plan was to have the type so adjusted that every seventh
size would be twice as great, up and down, as the smaller
one. To complete his plan it was necessary to add agate,
between pearl and nonpareil, and double brevier, other¬
wise known as Columbian, between English and great
primer. His theory has not been adopted by other foun¬
dries to any extent. The two foundries which were older
than his had nearly the same unit in pica, Bruce differ¬
ing, and he also differed in sizes in which the others
agreed. Job printers felt compelled to buy fonts which
would match with their existing quadrats and spaces.
Neither did Bruce push his sales as his competitors did
theirs. It cannot be doubted, however, that his plan
was the most philosophic of all. Each size going down
contained about 25.2 per cent, more matter than that
preceding. This is very important. In Bruce's system
the intervals are regular, so far as face is concerned.
There is a marked difference between long primer and
small pica, although under the old system they were very
close together, and there is only the same degree of dif¬
ference between nonpareil and minion, although in most
foundries the disproportion is great. Between nonpa¬
reil and minion the distance is, in decimals of an inch,
.0103-{-; between minion and brevier, .0115+; between
brevier and bourgeois, .0129-i-; between bourgeois and
long primer, .0145; between long primer and small pica,
.0163; between small pica and pica, .0183. Between
some sizes as cast by other foundries the distance is less
than .005, and between others over .02. On the new
point system the difference between sizes is .0138 ; the
disproportion between minion and nonpareil, instead of
being as by the Bruce system, 126.2 to 100, is as 136 to
100; the disproportion between the pica and small pica
by the Bruce method is 126.2 to 100; but by the point
system it is only 119 to 100. No other plan came up
until the point system was begun by Marder, Luse & Co.
of Chicago, about 1873.

The French point system was not unknown to Ameri¬
can type-founders of the earlier part of the century. An
old volume, bearing the computations and annotations of
Elihu White, who died in 1836, is in the hands of one of
the New York type-founders. In it this system is ex¬
plained at length. No attempt was made by any early
American founder to put a point scheme into operation
until after the Chicago fire, when Marder, Luse & Co,,
who were completely burned out, thought that the time
was appropriate for a complete adjustment of bodies on
a new plan. The standard size, pica, was divided into
twelve parts, each denominated a point. One point was
the thickness of a twelve-to-pica lead ; two points were
of the thickness of an ordinary six-to-pica lead; three
points had the thickness of a four-to-pica lead, and four
and a half points diamond. Beyond this the agreement
of names and numbers was easy. As soon as the plan
was promulgated other founders saw its value for ad¬
vertising purposes, if no more, and the result was that
a number soon changed partly to the point system and
some did so entirely. It is believed that all of the foun¬
dries of the United States now cast type upon the point
system when desired, and some have destroyed all their
other justified matrices. The result of so many firms
taking up a new system of measurement without agree¬
ment between themselves, and without conscientious
comparison of their gauges with a central standard, was
that for some time there were three scales in the point
system, several of the foundries deciding tl^at their picas,
breviers and long primers were near enough to absolute
accuracy to be used without change. This has, however,
been rectified, and it is now believed that the only varia¬
tions are those arising from heat and cold and from per¬
sonal equation in fixing dimensions.   The table of sizes

521