Reeya112/LJ_speaker · Datasets at Hugging Face

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It is discouraging to note that the improvement of the last fifty years is almost wholly confined to Great Britain.

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Here and there a book is printed in France or Germany with some pretension to good taste,

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but the general revival of the old forms has made no way in those countries.

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Italy is contentedly stagnant.

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America has produced a good many showy books, the typography, paper, and illustrations of which are, however, all wrong,

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oddity rather than rational beauty and meaning being apparently the thing sought for both in the letters and the illustrations.

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To say a few words on the principles of design in typography:

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it is obvious that legibility is the first thing to be aimed at in the forms of the letters;

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this is best furthered by the avoidance of irrational swellings and spiky projections, and by the using of careful purity of line.

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Even the Caslon type when enlarged shows great shortcomings in this respect:

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the ends of many of the letters such as the t and e are hooked up in a vulgar and meaningless way,

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instead of ending in the sharp and clear stroke of Jenson's letters;

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there is a grossness in the upper finishings of letters like the c, the a, and so on,

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an ugly pear-shaped swelling defacing the form of the letter:

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in short, it happens to this craft, as to others, that the utilitarian practice, though it professes to avoid ornament,

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still clings to a foolish, because misunderstood conventionality, deduced from what was once ornament, and is by no means useful;

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which title can only be claimed by artistic practice, whether the art in it be conscious or unconscious.

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In no characters is the contrast between the ugly and vulgar illegibility of the modern type

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and the elegance and legibility of the ancient more striking than in the Arabic numerals.

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In the old print each figure has its definite individuality, and one cannot be mistaken for the other;

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in reading the modern figures the eyes must be strained before the reader can have any reasonable assurance

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that he has a 5, an 8, or a 3 before him, unless the press work is of the best:

that he has a five, an eight, or a three before him, unless the press work is of the best:

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this is awkward if you have to read Bradshaw's Guide in a hurry.

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One of the differences between the fine type and the utilitarian must probably be put down to a misapprehension of a commercial necessity:

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this is the narrowing of the modern letters.

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Most of Jenson's letters are designed within a square,

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the modern letters are narrowed by a third or thereabout; but while this gain of space very much hampers the possibility of beauty of design,

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it is not a real gain, for the modern printer throws the gain away by putting inordinately wide spaces between his lines, which, probably,

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the lateral compression of his letters renders necessary.

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Commercialism again compels the use of type too small in size to be comfortable reading:

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the size known as "Long primer" ought to be the smallest size used in a book meant to be read.

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Here, again, if the practice of "leading" were retrenched larger type could be used without enhancing the price of a book.

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One very important matter in "setting up" for fine printing is the "spacing," that is, the lateral distance of words from one another.

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In good printing the spaces between the words should be as near as possible equal

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it is impossible that they should be quite equal except in lines of poetry

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modern printers understand this, but it is only practiced in the very best establishments.

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But another point which they should attend to they almost always disregard;

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this is the tendency to the formation of ugly meandering white lines or "rivers" in the page

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a blemish which can be nearly, though not wholly, avoided by care and forethought

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the desirable thing being "the breaking of the line" as in bonding masonry or brickwork

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The general solidity of a page is much to be sought for

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modern printers generally overdo the "whites" in the spacing, a defect probably forced on them by the characterless quality of the letters.

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For where these are boldly and carefully designed, and each letter is thoroughly individual in form,

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the words may be set much closer together, without loss of clearness.

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No definite rules, however, except the avoidance of "rivers" and excess of white, can be given for the spacing,

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which requires the constant exercise of judgment and taste on the part of the printer.

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The position of the page on the paper should be considered if the book is to have a satisfactory look.

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Here once more the almost invariable modern practice is in opposition to a natural sense of proportion.

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From the time when books first took their present shape till the end of the sixteenth century, or indeed later,

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the page so lay on the paper that there was more space allowed to the bottom and fore margin than to the top and back of the paper,

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the unit of the book being looked on as the two pages forming an opening.

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The modern printer, in the teeth of the evidence given by his own eyes, considers the single page as the unit, and prints the page in the middle of his paper

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only nominally so, however, in many cases, since when he uses a headline he counts that in,

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the result as measured by the eye being that the lower margin is less than the top one, and that the whole opening has an upside-down look vertically

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and that laterally the page looks as if it were being driven off the paper.

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The paper on which the printing is to be done is a necessary part of our subject:

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of this it may be said that though there is some good paper made now,

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it is never used except for very expensive books, although it would not materially increase the cost in all but the very cheapest.

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The paper that is used for ordinary books is exceedingly bad even in this country, but is beaten in the race for vileness

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by that made in America, which is the worst conceivable.

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There seems to be no reason why ordinary paper should not be better made,

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even allowing the necessity for a very low price; but any improvement must be based on showing openly that the cheap article is cheap,

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e.g. the cheap paper should not sacrifice toughness and durability to a smooth and white surface,

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which should be indications of a delicacy of material and manufacture which would of necessity increase its cost.

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One fruitful source of badness in paper

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is the habit that publishers have of eking out a thin volume by printing it on thick paper almost of the substance of cardboard,

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a device which deceives nobody, and makes a book very unpleasant to read.

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On the whole, a small book should be printed on paper which is as thin as may be without being transparent.

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The paper used for printing the small highly ornamented French service-books about the beginning of the sixteenth century is a model in this respect,

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being thin, tough, and opaque.

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However, the fact must not be blinked that machine-made paper cannot in the nature of things be made of so good a texture as that made by hand.

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The ornamentation of printed books is too wide a subject to be dealt with fully here; but one thing must be said on it.

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The essential point to be remembered is that the ornament, whatever it is, whether picture or pattern-work, should form part of the page,

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should be a part of the whole scheme of the book.

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Simple as this proposition is, it is necessary to be stated,

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because the modern practice is to disregard the relation between the printing and the ornament altogether,

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so that if the two are helpful to one another it is a mere matter of accident.

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The due relation of letter to pictures and other ornament was thoroughly understood by the old printers; so that

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even when the woodcuts are very rude indeed,

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the proportions of the page still give pleasure by the sense of richness that the cuts and letter together convey.

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When, as is most often the case, there is actual beauty in the cuts,

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the books so ornamented are amongst the most delightful works of art that have ever been produced.

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Therefore, granted well-designed type, due spacing of the lines and words, and proper position of the page on the paper,

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all books might be at least comely and well-looking: and if to these good qualities were added really beautiful ornament and pictures,

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printed books might once again illustrate to the full

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the position of our Society that a work of utility might be also a work of art, if we cared to make it so.

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The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume 2. By Arthur Griffiths. Section 4: Newgate down to 1818.

The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section four: Newgate down to eighteen eighteen.

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Under the conditions referred to in the previous chapter,

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with criminals and misdemeanants of all shades crowding perpetually into its narrow limits, the latter state of Newgate was worse than the first.

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The new jail fell as far short of the demands made on it as did the old.

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The prison population fluctuated a great deal,

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but it was almost always in excess of the accommodation available, and there were times when the place was full to overflowing.

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Neild gives some figures which well illustrate this.

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On the 14th June, 1800, there were 199 debtors and 289 felons in the prison.

On the fourteenth June, eighteen hundred, there were one hundred ninety-nine debtors and two hundred eighty-nine felons in the prison.

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On the 27th April, in the following year,

On the twenty-seventh April, in the following year,

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these numbers had risen to 275 and 375 respectively, or 650 in all.

these numbers had risen to two hundred seventy-five and three hundred seventy-five respectively, or six hundred fifty in all.

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For two more years these high figures were steadily maintained, and in 1803 the total rose to 710.

For two more years these high figures were steadily maintained, and in eighteen oh three the total rose to seven hundred ten.

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After that they fell as steadily,

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till, 1808, the lowest point was touched of 197 debtors and 182 felons, or 379 in all.

till, eighteen oh eight, the lowest point was touched of one hundred ninety-seven debtors and one hundred eighty-two felons, or three hundred seventy-nine in all.

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The numbers soon increased, however, and by 1811 had again risen to 629; and Mr. Neild was told that there had been at one time

The numbers soon increased, however, and by eighteen eleven had again risen to six hundred twenty-nine; and Mr. Neild was told that there had been at one time