American dictionary of printing and bookmaking

(New York :  H. Lockwood,  1894.)

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PRINTING AND BOOKMAKING.
 

STA
 

The point system has apparently come to stay. It
was regarded in the beginning as an advertising device
for Chicago founders, but the quickness with which
other foundries elsewhere seized upon it proves that
there was certainly much merit in the scheme. It was
adopted by the Type-Founders' Association in 1886, and
there is an exhaustive report in its favor in one of the
papers attached to the report of the proceedings at the
convention of the United Typothetae in Boston in 1890,
Its advantages are that the sizes rise by regular grada¬
tions, a twelve-to-pica lead added to a nonpareil giving
the same depth of body which minion requires, and a six
and twelve making it equal to a bourgeois. This is a great
convenience in the job-room, but the chief advantage
which printers look to is in the fact that spaces and quad¬
rats from all foundries which adopt this plan should be
interchangeable, and type of similar face and bodies can
a,lso be used together. This has been a great drawback.
]S[ot only has one foundry dififered from another in its
basis fonts, but each foundry has had many sizes. Con¬
ner, for instance, casts for the New York Herald an agate
which is much smaller than the other agate from that
place. It is supposed and believed that these differences
will now end. This would certainly prove a great boon
to the trade ; but the advantages thus gained have not
been complete. Printers for a long time will require
sorts for their old faces, and these cannot be had if the
new system is strictly carried out. The greatest evil it
occasions, however, is the lack of proportion between
faces. It is a rule, for instance, that extracts shall go in
type two sizes smaller than the body of a work. This
would give for a pica extracts in long primer, the pro¬
portion of words in a given space being little less than
five to eight. With brevier, notes would be in nonpareil.
By the point system the difference between the former
two sizes is so small that the extracts will look as if they
are in a small pica; in the latter the difference will be
that between an ordinary brevier and an agate. In the
former case the proportion will be nine to thirteen, and
in the latter nine to sixteen. Discrepancies so great as
this necessarily injure the books published upon type
thus made. It is probable, also, that the great variation
between nonpareil and minion will induce the founders
to make type upon a minionette body, or six and a half
points. This size is much used in London. In France
the size seven and a half is greatly employed, as there
was need of a type between seven and eight.

One great difficulty which immediately occurred to all
thinking men when this plan began was that sufficient
care would not be taken to adhere to the standards. It
is believed that one large foundry in the United States is
now making pica which varies one line in two hundred
and fifty from the true standard, and several experiments
within the last four or five years have shown a discrep¬
ancy between the productions of other founders who
have adopted this system. For the use of a printing-
office a stick holding exactly twenty-four picas in length
is desirable. After being properly set it can be welded
together. In this can be gauged every size of type. It
will take forty-eight ems of nonpareil, forty ems of min¬
ion and one of brevier; thirty-six ems of brevier, thirty-
two of bourgeois, twenty-seven of long primer and three
of nonpareil; and twenty-five of small pica, one of non¬
pareil and one of minion. These tests can be varied in
many ways. Only one thing seems to have been lack¬
ing—the deposit of a standard gauge at the Smithsonian
Institute or some like place, so that not only may there
be standards in the hands of the type-founders, but that
these may be accessible to the public.

Standing Press.—Screw presses used in the ware¬
house for pressing.    See Wabehouse.

Stands High.—In printing, type or blocks which
are higher than other types or than the normal height.

Stanhope, Lord.—At the close of the eighteenth
century the printing-press remained in about the same
 

form which it had maintained for the two hundred years
preceding. Blaew's improvements had put the wooden
press in a more compact shape, and Anisson had proved
that iron could be much more largely employed than it
had been. Anisson's changes never went farther than
to make one or two presses for the lloyal Printing-Office
of France, and there was great need of further improve¬
ments. It was at this time that Charles Mahon, third
Earl of Stanhope, began his experiments in mechanical
improvements in the printer's trade. He was bom in
August, 1753, and belonged to the same family as Lord
Chesterfield. He studied at Eton and afterwards at Ge¬
neva, and became so proficient in the French language
that at eighteen he wrote an essay upon the structure
of the pendulum, which was crowned by the Academy of
Stockholm. He later wrote treatises upon electricity,
tuning instruments, safety against fire and thunder¬
storms. He also invented two machines, one of which
performed addition and subtraction, and the other mul¬
tiplication and division. At twenty-one he married his
cousin, Hester Pitt, the daughter of the Earl of Chat¬
ham, one of his children, Lady Hester Stanhope, becom¬
ing famous long after for her eccentricities in the East,
Elected a member of the House of Commons in 1780, he
avowed himself an ultra Whig, and demanded a termina¬
tion of the war with America. During the years which
followed he was an ardent supporter of the rights of the
people. He renounced the peerage, and desired to be
known only as Mr. Stanhope. His investigations of the
structure of the press began about 1800. He engaged
the assistance of an able machinist of London named
Walker, and spent large sums of money upon an inquiry
into the proper materials to use for inking rollers. In
this attempt there was a failure, but not in the manu¬
facture of the press, which was wholly built of iron, and
exerted a force six to eight times as great as its prede¬
cessor. It was first tried at Bulmer's, known as the
Shakespeare Press. He did not take out any patent for
this, nor attempt to apply for one for the process of
stereotyping, which he introduced to the British world,
although he was not the inventor. Stanhope presented
himself to Tilloch and Foulis as their pupil, offering
them eight hundred pounds. He was assisted by Wil¬
son, a London printer, and in the end they were success¬
ful in their experiments. The British public did not
take kindly to the new art, however, and in 1812 there
were only two master stereotypers in England. Stan¬
hope also invented a system of logotypes, which were
never extensively tried, as, although he believed their
use would be profitable, he was never able to convert
the printers to the same opinion. He wrote a reply to
Mr, Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France ; a
refutation of a Plan for a Sinking Fund, which had been
proposed by Dr. Price, and an Essay on Juries. He died
on December 15,1816.

Stanhope Press.—The first Enghsh iron press. It
was the invention of Lord Stanhope, a nobleman who
devoted much time to the useful arts. A Frenchman,
Anisson, had in the year 1785 made an improved press
either wholly or almost entirely of iron, but as it was
made for the king's service it attracted little attention.
Lord Stanhope saw the weakness of the common wooden
press, which gave no more power than could be derived
from a lever three feet long, for the turn of the screw
was only a quarter of the way, and yet it depressed the
platen as much as was necessary, or five-eighths of an
inch. Obviously this power was very little. Yet with
wood it was impossible to build a press which could
stand much more strain than this. The resistance was
derived from the head above, which was a block of wood
ten and a half inches thick, and below from the winter,
another block nine inches thick. These were each fast¬
ened into the side posts by tenons two inches square.
That which could overcome the resistance of these ten¬
ons would break down the press, and as a matter of
fact presses were frequently broken down.    Stanhope's

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