A dictionary of the art of printing

If a workman is in the habit of telling improbable tales, or of asserting falsehoods, as the chapel does not allow the lie direct to be given, neither do any choose to get into a personal quarrel by doing it, it is usual, in order to express the general disbelief, to wash him, as it is termed; that is, each person with a piece of furniture, or some other substance, will strike repeatedly and quickly upon the front of his frame, upon the ledge of his lower case, or upon his bulk; and this being done by every person in the room, where there are a great number employed, it raises such a loud drumming as is deafening, more particularly when they give what they call a “good” wash: this is customary both in the composing room and the press room. For the old manner of doing this, see Ancient Customs.

If a form gets foul in working, the pressmen will take it off the press and brush it over with lye, and after that rinse it with clean water, to remove the foulness. He also washes the form when the given number is all printed.—M.

After a work has been finished at press and dried, it is gathered, collated, the gatherings folded and pressed, and then booked, if it contain more gatherings than one; and when the regular number of copies has been made up, the surplus sheets, which vary in number, are tied up in a bundle, and termed Waste: out of this waste deficient sheets are supplied, and damaged sheets exchanged. It is always delivered to the publisher with the last copies of the work.

A stubble goose.—Bailey. Called Way Goose, and so spelt by Moxon. See Ancient Customs.

July is the month in which the different offices in the metropolis generally have each their Way Goose, or annual dinner, and Saturday is the day commonly chosen.

In common work, where despatch is requisite, weak ink is used; it distributes with more facility than strong ink, and enables the pressmen to make a greater riddance. It receives its name from the varnish not being made so tenacious as that for better ink.

5 & 6 W. 4. c. 63. § 31.—“And be it enacted, That from and after the First Day of January One thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, if any Person or Persons shall print, or if the Clerk of any Market or other Person shall make any Return, Price List, Price Current, or any Journal or other Paper containing Price List or Price Current, in which the Denomination of Weights and Measures quoted or referred to shall denote or imply a greater or less Weight or Measure than is denoted or implied by the same Denomination of the Imperial Weights and Measures under and according to the Provisions of this Act, such Person or Persons or Clerk of the Market shall forfeit and pay any Sum not exceeding Ten Shillings for every Copy of such Return, Price List, Price Current, Journal or other Paper which he or they shall publish.”

The Welsh alphabet, as now popularly used, contains twenty-eight letters: a, b, c, ch, d, dd, e, f, ff, g, ng, h, i, l, ll, m, n, o, p, ph, rh, r, s, t, th, u, w, y.

J, q, x, and z, are not properly Welsh letters, nor are they wanted in words purely Welsh.

K and v occur frequently in old Welsh, but are now generally disused; the place of the former is supplied by c, which always has the hard sound, and that of the latter by f.

In addition to the common accented letters, the Welsh requires ŵ and ŷ to be accented likewise; as, gŵr, a man; tŷ, a house.

Of the twenty-one Welsh consonants twelve are immutable, namely, ch, dd, f, ff, ng, k, l, n, ph, r, s, th; the remaining nine, b, c, d, g, ll, m, p, rh, t, are mutable. These are divisible into three classes of three letters each. The first, containing c, t, p, is susceptible of three kinds of modification, viz. the obtuse, the liquid, and the aspirate; the second class, comprising g, d, b, is affected by two kinds, the obtuse and the liquid; and the third, comprising ll, m, rh, is susceptible of the obtuse form only.

The following table will show at one view the various changes of the mutable initial consonants:—

The following examples may be given to show more clearly the nature of these mutations:—1. Câr, a kinsman; 2. Gwâs, a servant.

1. All verbs, except of the infinitive mood, and interjections.

2. All personal pronouns; the possessives DY, thy; mau, mine; tau, thine; and ei (masc.) his; but not when fem.; the relatives pa, which; pwy, who; and à, that.

3. Adjectives and formative adverbs, and interjections.

4. The duals dau and dwy, two.

5. All prepositions, except yn, in, and tua, towards.

6. Pronominal prepositions.

7. The article y, the, if the object be feminine.

8. The participial sign yn.

9. The disjunctive sign neu, or.

1. The possessive pronoun my or fy, my.

2. The word yn when used as the English preposition in.

1. The possessive pronoun ei (fem.) her.

2. The adverbs tra, over; and ni, and na, not.

3. The conjunctions a, and; no, than; neu, or; and oni, unless.

4. The preposition â, with.

5. The numerals tri, three; and chwe, six.

All vowel initials take h before them, after ei (fem.) her; ein, our; and eu, their.

Welsh substantives do not vary in their terminations, but the cases are distinguished by prepositions changing their initial letters, if mutable, according to their dependance on the preceding word; as, N. tŷ, a house; G. dodrefn fy nhŷ, the furniture of my house; A. prynodd dŷ, he bought a house; Ab. allan o’i thŷ, out of her house.

Deg, ten, and pymtheg, fifteen, before blynedd, years, not only change the initial of the following word into its corresponding liquid, but likewise suffer a variation themselves; thus, for deg blynedd and pymtheg blynedd we find deng mlynedd and pymtheng mlynedd; and for pump blynedd we read pum mlynedd, five years.

Authorities.—Dr. Pughe’s Welsh Grammar, 2d edit. Denbigh, 1832.—Rev. W. Gambold’s Welsh Grammar, 3d edit. Bala, 1833.—Dr. Prichard on the Celtic Languages, London, 1831.

On the bottom side of the two cross bearers in the middle of a frame, on which the inner ends of the lower cases rest, there is frequently a bottom nailed of thin deal; this, when the ends of the cases are close together, forms a receptacle in which the compositor puts copy and other articles, and it is named a Well. To obtain access to it he slides one of the cases a little away from the other.

In quoting my old pressman’s observations again, it will be perceived that he is speaking of the practice when pelt balls were in use.

“When a pressman is engaged to work in a strange office, if there be no balls for him, he puts an old and a new pelt into the pelt pot, and, while his pelts are soaking, he inquires whether he has to wet paper or not; if he has to wet it, he does it in a large trough lined with lead, containing clean water. He holds the middle of the back of each quire in one hand, and the fore edge with the other hand, and draws it quickly through the water, the back first; lays it on a clean wrapper (which is laid on a clean paper board); opens part of the quire, leaves that part on the board, and draws the remainder of the quire, and all the other quires in the same proportion, through the water as often as necessary, till he has wet all the heap; then he places another paper board on the top of the heap, and puts sufficient weight on it; in this state it continues till the paper is all properly damped, by the moisture becoming diffused through the whole heap, except it be for fine work, when he turns the paper as often as he thinks necessary, pressing it at each turning; and common work would look better if the paper were turned.

“Paper for different works being of various qualities, it is impossible to form a regular judgment of how many dips in each quire all sorts of paper require; therefore the wetter must be cautious in examining, while wetting, whether each sort is of a soft, or spongy, middling, hard, or harsh nature; also to consider whether it be for a light or a heavy form, and dip each sort accordingly.”

In large establishments the pressmen do not wet the paper, but there is one or more persons appointed to that duty solely, who also turn it and press it, so that it is delivered to the pressmen to print, more uniformly in good condition, than where they wet it. See Token. Token Sheet.

Also called girt wheel, and drum; a cylinder of elm wood, with two flat broad grooves turned in it, on which the two girts wind and unwind alternately, as the carriage is run in and out. It is fixed on the spit, and one end of each girt is nailed to it; the other ends are fastened, the one that runs the carriage in to the end of the coffin, and the other to the fore end of the plank. The diameter of the wheel varies according to the size of the press.

A line of quadrats.—M. So it is usually understood at present; yet it frequently happens that quadrats are not in sufficient quantity to use for white lines, even for the bottoms of the pages; reglet of a proper thickness is then substituted for quadrats, and sometimes leads, but these should never be used for this purpose—for a volume or a pamphlet may be wanted in a great hurry in the same measure, and then an inconvenience may arise from the leads being blocked up in an unnecessary manner.

Although the first form be printed off, yet pressmen erroneously call that heap white paper, till the reiteration be printed.—M. This application of the term is now wearing away; and generally speaking, it is only used for paper not printed upon; when the pressmen are printing the first form of a sheet or the first side of a half sheet, they say they are working the white paper.

Pulling an impression without ink, or with a sheet of waste paper between the form and the paper for the work, for the purpose of ascertaining that the furniture is right. This is a good old custom, and it is a pity that it is now so seldom practised, as it would prevent those mistakes of wrong furniture which occasionally occur in the white paper form, and when this happens, which I have known at different times, the only remedy is, either to cancel what has been printed, or to alter the reiteration form to make it register with that which is printed, to the disfigurement of the book when it is bound.

A solid piece of wood, generally elm, similar to the head of a press, mortised into the cheeks below the carriage and the long ribs, and on which they rest.

I would recommend, contrary to the general practice, that in wooden presses the winter should lie solid in the mortises of the cheeks, and have no spring; and that all the spring should be in the head, which would not affect the perpendicular descent of the platen. This method of constructing a press would be found advantageous in all cases; but more particularly in one-pull presses, in which the platens are large:—

For it must be obvious, where an uniform impression is meant to be obtained from types, by means of the perpendicular descent of a body with a plane surface, that this surface and the surface of the types should be parallel to each other, and that every variation from these parallels must affect the equality of the pressure.

It being a necessary consequence, that the surface of the types should be horizontal; it will be equally clear, that every departure from this horizontal line will destroy the parallelism of the two surfaces, and prevent an equal pressure on all their parts.

One part of the carriage of a press lies on the winter, the other end resting on, and confined to, the forestay, which is fixed to the floor, and cannot give way; the coffin, in which is the press stone, lies on the carriage; and on the press stone the types are placed. Now, when great pressure is applied to the types, to produce an impression, it causes the winter to give way, which immediately disturbs the horizontal plane of the types, and destroys the parallel between them and the face of the platen, and causes an unequal pressure, besides straining the cords of the platen, the platen itself, and all the parts connected with it, to the injury of the workmanship, and of the whole machine; all which would be avoided by the winter being laid solid in the mortises of the cheeks, and the carriage and ribs justified by a level. It would also be attended with another advantage,—not being so liable to slur in running in; the inner tympan not being so close to the platen.

This principle is equally applicable to iron presses, as well as to wooden ones; and will tend to preserve them a longer time in good condition.

That part of the frame in a wooden press on which the long ribs are fastened; in the middle they lie on the winter where the under resistance to the pressure is, and are kept in their place by the summer; and at the fore end they are supported by the fore stay; it is necessary that they should be perfectly level.

Made with strong wire; one of which is fastened to two pieces of wood that go across the wool hole, and the other has two open handles fixed to the back of it, for the purpose of carding the wool with which the balls are stuffed.

A place boxed off sometimes under a stair case, or in any situation where the dust will not affect the press room, or other departments of the business—in which the wool is carded wherewith to make the balls.

The wool is kept in the box, over which two pieces of wood are stretched across and fastened down, lowest in the front; on these one of the cards is fixed. In the act of carding the wool the dust and refuse fall into the box, and are thus prevented from being trampled about.

Wool Hole. The workhouse. When a compositor or pressman is reduced by age or illness to take refuge in the workhouse, it is said he is in the Wool Hole.

When a job, or the sheet of a work is printed, it is said to be Worked, or Worked-off. See Off.

In printing offices where there are a number of presses employed, it is usual to distinguish them by numbers; as 1st press, 2d press, &c.; and the pressmen put a figure into each form they work, corresponding to the number of their press, for the purpose of ascertaining readily at which press a sheet was printed in case of bad workmanship, or any accident; and in general pressmen are subject to a fine if they work without a figure, or with a wrong one: but when the same press works both the forms of a sheet, it is not necessary to have a figure in more than one form.

The figure used to be placed regularly in a white line at the bottom of an even page, about four ems from the fore edge: it was placed in an even page that it might not mislead the bookbinder; and always in a full page that did not finish a paragraph.


Primitive Letters.		Obtuse.	Liquid.	Aspirate.

	{ c	g	ngh	ch
Class I.	{ t	d	nh	th
	{ p	b	mh	ph

	{ g	initial omitted.	ng
Class II.	{ d	dd or dh	n
	{ b	f	m

	{ ll	l
Class III.	{ m	f
	{ rh	r

Primitive.	Câr agos, a near kinsman.	Gwâs ffyddlon, a faithful servant.
Obtuse.	Ei gâr, his kinsman.	Ei wâs, his servant.
Liquid.	Fy nghâr, my kinsman.	Fy ngwâs, my servant.
Aspirate.	Ei châr, her kinsman.