River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1900-09-27
Figuring in Letters.


How do you know there.are $1,000 |
pieces of metal-letters, leads, spaces,
punctuation marks, etc.-in the issue |
of Aug. 30; did you count them?"
Practically, yes. The typesetter has
to pick from its designated box sin
gly-one at time-every one of these |
pieces and put it In its appropriate
place-if he don't make mistake
and consequently, he may keep ac-
count of them readily if there is any
special occasion for it. We have how
ever other ways of determining pref
ty accurately the number of pieces us
edin a given space. A''gauge' is man
ufactu5ed for measuring composition
which may be used, or we may attain
the result in this way: We count the
number Of lines of reading matter
which we find to be 2065. These
lines are all of the same length, but
as different sizes of type are used in
different articles there are more
words and consequently more letters
Ill SOL1O tinC5 ulltn Al OblO15s hIAO
are three kinds of type in these 2065
lines, 10-point, used for the editorial
on the first page, 65 lines; 8-point,
used for the local" page, 400 lines;
6-point, used for notices, 600. To find
the average number of words of each
kind Of type we count the number of
words in ten lines or more and divide
the sum by the number of lines
counted. This is found to be about
as follows: 10-point, 6.8 words in line;
S-point, 6.8 usually reckoned at
words in a line@and 6-point, S.4 words
| to line. We multiply the number OF
lines of each kind of type by the num-
| Der of words in line of that kind
| and add the results to find the whole
number of words. This would give
| 1850 words. To find the number of
letters we count the number In ten
or more lines of each kind of type and
| divide to get the average, the same
| method we use In ascertaining the
| average number of words in line.
The result is about this 80 letters
in line of both the 10-point and the
| S-point used in the JOURNAL (but the
| 10-point which several of our eXchan-
| ges make exclusive use of in their To-
cal columns averages but % letters to
| the line, so il may be seen that in
| setting 1000 lines we use 5000 more
letters than we should if we used type
of the thickness referred to.) The
| 6-point we use averages about 37.5 let
| tiers to the line. Now we can easily
find the aggregate number of letters
used by multiplying the number of
| lines of each kind of type by the av-
| erage mum Der of letters of that kind
| in line and adding the products,-
| 6645O. AS each word is separated
| from the next by space there will
be as many spaces as there are words,
theoretically. But practically there
are many more spaces than words
| because the lines seldom 'justify, y
| filed out with single space between
the words, and so more spaces than
words must be used to fill out the
| line according to rule. The conven-
tionslities of typographical etiquette
do not permit of the division of
word except between the syllables.
Adding the mum Der of letters: 66450,
the number OF spaces, equal to the
mum Der of letters: 1880, and the esti-
mated additional mum Der to Justify
the lines, perhaps as many as there
are lines at least: 2065; the number of
leads, equal to the number of lines:
2065, and about half as many punctu-
alton marks, etc, as there are lines:
1000, we get the $1,000.
There are many different kinds OF
type in printing Office and vast
numb Der of separate pieces of each
kind OF type. For each kind of body
type there is separate case, or Tath-
er double case, and liz each of these
152 boxes, each one of which holds all
the like pieces of type. There are
three sizes of letters in each double
case: large capitals: small capitals;
and lower-case letters, three times &c,
Is boxes; box for each kind OF num-
eral; one for each of the six sizes of
spaces; one for each double letter cast
separately, #, Fl, fl, fl, fiji; one for each
of the dipthongs, E, G, a, G; one
for each fraction: /, J. 4, ], {, 6, !, ], 8;
one for each of the characters: &, S, y,
t, t, l, S, T, EB ID, q, a, :, G, ~,
-, =, 49,, ~ l,,.;:?! +"
-; and perhaps few Others we
may have overlooked.