CANCEL.

At the conclusion of a work, if there be any leaves cancelled, it is useful to place a mark in the white line of the odd page of the reprinted leaf, to prevent a mistake on the part of the bookbinder; a *, †, ‡, ‖, or §, either upright or laid flat. This is too frequently neglected, and when the warehouseman omits tearing or cutting the cancelled leaf, the wrong one occasionally is bound in the book. To save press work and paper, cancel leaves are always imposed with the fragments, if possible.

Before the book is gathered, the warehouseman should either tear the cancelled leaf or run his knife up it, so as to prevent it being overlooked by the bookbinder; running the knife up it is the most expeditious method, and, to prevent mistakes, he ought to do this himself, and not to entrust it to boys, as cutting a wrong leaf would cause another leaf to be reprinted, and he might be held responsible for the expense, and also incur censure on account of delay.

CANON.

The name of a type, a size larger than Trafalgar, and the largest with a specific name. The body is four Picas, the next size being four line Pica, and so upwards, reckoning by lines of Pica. See Types.

CAP.

The top part of a wooden press; it has two mortises at each end to receive the tenons at the upper end of each cheek, by which it keeps the cheeks at a proper distance at the top; and the head is suspended from it by two iron bolts, with screws and nuts at the upper end, by which the pull also is regulated.

CAPITALS.

The following directions respecting the use of capital letters, are extracted from Lindley Murray’s English Grammar.

‘It was formerly the custom to begin every noun with a capital: but as this practice was troublesome, and gave the writing or printing a crowded and confused appearance, it has been discontinued. It is, however, very proper to begin with a capital,

‘1. The first word of every book, chapter, letter, note, or any other piece of writing.

‘2. The first word after a period; and, if the two sentences are totally independent, after a note of interrogation or exclamation.

‘But if a number of interrogative or exclamatory sentences are thrown into one general group, or if the construction of the latter sentences depends on the former, all of them, except the first, may begin with a small letter: as, “How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning? and fools hate knowledge?” “Alas! how different! yet how like the same!”

‘3. The appellations of the Deity: as, “God, Jehovah, the Almighty, the Supreme Being, the Lord, Providence, the Messiah, the Holy Spirit.”

‘4. Proper names of persons, places, streets, mountains, rivers, ships: as, “George, York, the Strand, the Alps, the Thames, the Seahorse.”

‘5. Adjectives derived from the proper names of places: as, “Grecian, Roman, English, French, and Italian.”

‘6. The first word of a quotation, introduced after a colon, or when it is in a direct form: as, “Always remember this ancient maxim: ‘Know thyself.’” “Our great Lawgiver says, ‘Take up thy cross daily, and follow me.’” But when a quotation is brought in obliquely after a comma, a capital is unnecessary: as, “Solomon observes, ‘that pride goes before destruction.’”

‘The first word of an example may also very properly begin with a capital: as, “Temptation proves our virtue.”

‘7. Every substantive and principal word in the titles of books: as, “Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language;” “Thomson’s Seasons;” “Rollin’s Ancient History.”

‘8. The first word of every line in poetry.

‘9. The pronoun I, and the interjection O, are written in capitals: as, “I write:” “Hear, O earth!”

‘Other words, besides the preceding, may begin with capitals, when they are remarkably emphatical, or the principal subject of the composition.’

CAPPING BALLS.

Wrapping up pelt balls in blankets soaked in urine at night, and when they are not in use, to keep them soft. They are generally left on the floor of the sink.

CAPPING A MAN.

Wrapping one of the blankets with which the pelt balls are capped about a man’s head, and tying it round his neck. This most filthy and disgusting punishment is very rarely inflicted in a press room; yet I have read an account of a trial at the Old Bailey for an assault, in which this act was the ground of offence.

CARD.

When several bodies of letter are set in a page, compositors to justify that page to an exact length, put a card to some white line, or other break, and lengthen out the page the thickness of a card. Pressmen also use a card for an underlay.—M. Cards are rarely used now for these purposes; in making up pages, leads and scaleboards are used, and, where great nicety is required, a careful compositor will cut slips of smooth even paper, and use them where a lead or a scaleboard would be too much. At press, underlays are not used for types; and where an engraving on wood is much too low, the pressman will underlay it with thick wrapper paper. In fact, cards are an article that neither composing rooms nor press rooms are supplied with.

CARDS.

About a quire of paper, which pressmen use to pull down the spring or rising of a form, which it is many times subject to by hard locking up.—M.

The term is also applied to pieces of scaleboard, old felted hat, or pasteboard, for they are all called cards, cut to the size of the mortises in the cheeks of a wooden press, and laid in them, under the tenons of the winter, and above those of the head, to cause a spring in both these parts, for the purpose of softening the pull. I would never place any cards under the winter, for the reasons assigned under that article. See Winter.

CARD WOOL.

The act of carding wool to stuff the balls with, to take out the knots, dirt, &c., for the purpose of making the balls softer, more elastic, and to have a more even surface than would be the case if the wool were not carded. This operation is repeated every time a pair of balls is knocked up. Formerly it was teazed, and not carded.

CARET.

A caret, marked thus ^, is placed where some word happens to be left out in writing, and which is inserted over the line. This mark is also called a circumflex, when placed over some vowel of a word, to denote a long syllable: as, “Euphrâtes.”—Murray.

CARRIAGE,

is that part of the press that runs in under the platen, including the plank, coffin, &c. I am aware that many printers call the long wooden ribs and frame the carriage; but I am also satisfied that they misname that part of the press: for who ever heard of running in the long ribs? yet to run in the carriage is a common expression; and the name implies that the article moves or travels. This word bore the signification which I assign to it in the seventeenth century, for Moxon uses it in this sense. See Run in the Carriage.

CASE,

in which the letters are laid to compose with.—M.

Cases are always spoken of as pairs; viz. upper case and lower case; when placed upon a frame to compose out of, the front of the upper case rests against the back of the lower case, lying in different inclinations, the back of the upper case being raised to bring the top boxes nearer the hand.

They are generally made of beech; the outer rim and the middle bar stout, to give strength, and to nail the bottoms to, which are lined with paper, to prevent letters falling through cracks, or joints that might open; this lining used to be cartridge paper, which strengthened the bottom, but the joiner now lines them with cheap and thin demy paper; the bottom is made of thin fir deal. The dimensions are—two feet eight inches and a half, sometimes two feet nine inches long; one foot two inches and a half wide, and one inch and a quarter deep; the front being about half an inch broader than the depth, which forms a ledge for galleys to rest against, and also serves as a guard to stop letters, &c. falling over.

It is interesting to trace the changes that take place in any art; hence I have given the arrangement of the letters in cases at different periods, commencing with the first English writer, Moxon, who published his work in the year 1683; then Smith, who published in 1755; the cases before the long ſ was discarded, in my own time; the arrangement now generally used; and a variation, subdividing the boxes in the upper case, and changing the arrangement, both in that and the lower case, to afford room for a greater number of sorts, and to make the access to them more convenient; I have also added the late Earl Stanhope’s plan.

In Moxon’s cases it will be perceived there are no ç, ſb, ſk, Œ, ‡, ‖, ¶, [, (, |, nor any small capitals.

Smith, in his Printer’s Grammar, gives “Schemes for Three Pair of Cases, shewing the Difference in the Disposition of their Sorts.” I have given his No. I. and No. III.; No. II. is the same as the one before the long ſ was discarded, with the exception of the q being in the comma box, and the comma in the q box.

This arrangement of the letters before the long ſ was discarded, continued down to our own time, except the transposition of the q and the comma; and the “schemes” Smith gives as No. I. and No. III. became obsolete.

When the long ſ was discarded, and we confined ourselves to one shape of the same letter, the ligature ct was also disused; we thus lost the ct, ſb, ſh, ſi, ſk, ſl, ſſ, ſſi, ſſl, and ſt, which gave ten additional boxes for other sorts; these have afforded convenience for metal rules and braces, which before were wanted, and also for the £ and [#] that are now frequently sent with a fount, particularly the £.

The discarding of the long ſ originated with the late John Bell, who printed and published an edition of Shakspeare, the British Theatre, and the Poets: the change was not generally adopted for some years, and many retained one ſ when two came together, as ‘Eſsay;’ but the s prevailed, and no other is now used.

In the present arrangement, the figures are brought lower down to be nearer the hand, and the vowels with the diæresis moved higher up; for the same reason the acute accented vowels have changed places with those of the grave accent.

Mr. Johnson, in his Typographia, has given a variation in the arrangement that he has adopted. I do not see any improvement in the lower case to induce master printers to change the general mode, which would only tend to create confusion and put the boxes into pie. A subdivision of the boxes in the upper case, would be useful in two or three pairs in large founts, that had superiors and fractions cast to them; but as few founts have them, these subdivisions would not only be useless, but inconvenient, if applied to all the cases, as they would not leave sufficient room for metal rules, braces, &c., neither do they afford convenience for all the fractions that are cast in a piece; besides, vowels with the long and short accents are so rarely used in the general routine of business, that it is not necessary to cramp the boxes to make provision for them; and there is always room in the back boxes of the Italic cases in which to put sorts that are seldom wanted; to this we may add the additional expense of making these cases, which in an extensive business would be considerable.

Among the various arrangements of the types in cases at different periods and by different persons, I am gratified at being enabled to give that of the late Earl Stanhope, from a stereotype plate of his Lordship’s casting; this plan of the cases, the logotypes, the alteration of the letter f, and the shape of the boxes, were never adopted in the trade.

MOXON’S CASES. 1683.

SMITH’S CASES. No. I. 1755.

SMITH’S CASES. No. III. 1755.

CASES BEFORE THE LONG ſ WAS DISCARDED.

PRESENT ARRANGEMENT OF THE TYPES.

STANHOPE COMPOSING CASES.

PECULIARITIES AND ADVANTAGES OF THESE CASES.

Stereotyped and Printed by EARL STANHOPE, Chevening House, Kent.

CASE IS FULL.

A case full of letters, wanting no sorts.—M.

CASE IS LOW.

When a case grows empty, compositors say, The Case is Low.—M.

CASE RACK.

A frame made of strong deal boards, with ledges nailed on the inside of the sides, in which to slide cases that are not in use, to keep them safe. They are usually made to contain fourteen pairs of cases; they are two feet nine inches wide in the clear, and seven feet high.

Where full cases of letter are kept for the purpose of expediting any new work that requires great despatch, some houses have a bar of iron from top to bottom, and lock the cases up to preserve the letter.

CASE RUNS OVER.

When a compositor distributes so much letter into a case as to fill the boxes till the letters mingle with those in the adjoining boxes, he says, his Case runs over, or it overflows. This frequently causes additional errors in the proof, and of course is not an advisable practice.

CASE STANDS STILL.

When the compositor is not at work at his case, it is said, The Case stands still.—M. Obsolete.

CASSIE PAPER.

The two outside quires of a ream. They are also called Cassie Quires, because they serve for cases to the ream.—M. See Outside Quires.

CASTING. See Electrotype.

CASTING UP.

Calculating the number of thousands of letters in a sheet of any work, or in a job, in order to fix the price for composing it.

To facilitate the ascertainment of the number of thousands of letters in a sheet of bookwork, and also of jobs, I have given a set of tables, which I believe includes, generally speaking, the sizes of the pages that usually occur in practice. These tables will be found useful to those compositors who are not expert at figures, while those who are so may save time by referring to them, and they may also serve as a check to their own casting up. The figures at the top designate the number of lines the page is long; and the figures in the column specify the number of thousands of letters in a sheet, according to the size named in the head. To ascertain the number of thousands of letters, the established rule is, to take the number of lines the page is long, including the head line and the direction line, and the number of en quadrats in the width of the page, the en quadrat being estimated as the average thickness of the letters, and on multiplying the one by the other the product will give the number of letters in a page; and this product multiplied by the number of pages in a sheet, gives the number of letters in a sheet; where there is a fraction of a thousand, and that fraction amounts to 500 or upwards, it is reckoned and charged as 1,000; when it is less than 500 it is dropped, and not included in the calculation. There are some exceptions to this general rule of taking the dimensions when the type exceeds a certain size, for which see Scale of Prices.

TABLE OF THE NUMBER OF THOUSANDS IN A SHEET.