Composing

A term which includes several exercises as well of the mind as of the body; for when we are said to compose we are at the same time engaged in reading and spelling what we are composing, as well as in taking care to space and justify the matter.

When the copy of a work is put into the hands of the compositor he should receive directions respecting the style of the work. He then makes his measure to the exact number of Pica ems directed, which is done by laying them flat-ways in the composing-stick, and then screwing it up, not too tight, as that would be apt to strain it, nor so slack as to allow the measure to give. He then fits a setting-rule to the measure, and his case being supplied with the letter, he is prepared for composing.

Having taken notice of the state of the copy, he begins his work. His chief endeavour should be to compose with ease, accuracy, and expedition. An ill habit, once acquired, is with difficulty shaken off. The variety of motions exhibited by some compositors are truly ludicrous, such as nodding the head, agitating the body, throwing out the arm, ticking the letter against the case or the setting-rule, with many other false movements, which not only waste time, but fatigue the mind and exhaust the body. The swift action of the hand is not the criterion of a quick compositor.

Having placed himself opposite the centre of the lower case, the compositor takes the stick in his left hand, his thumb being over the slide, resting on the setting-rule; with the thumb and first finger of his right hand he takes up the letters, spaces, quadrats, &c., one by one, and places each upon the setting rule, supporting and placing them together by the action of the left thumb, the other hand being constantly disengaged for picking up the next letter. The whole of these movements are performed with a degree of celerity not easily conceivable by a stranger to the art.

Upon arriving near the end of his measure he observes whether the line will end with a complete word, or an entire syllable, including the hyphen, and if his last word or syllable happens exactly to fill the measure, or makes the line completely tight, he has nothing more to do to that line; but if, which is far more likely to be the case, he finds the measure not entirely filled by perfect words or syllables, he increases the distances between the words in that line by equally adding more space between until the measure is moderately tightened. This operation is called “justifying,” and if done properly is one that displays much nicety and skill, every line requiring to be of an equal degree of tightness, neither too tightly wedged into the composing stick, nor yet at all loose and uneven; neither the words placed too close together in one line, nor too wide apart in others. This is one great criterion of a good workman.

The compositor may as often have to lessen the spaces first used in a line as to add to them, particularly in narrow measures of large type, containing of course fewer words in a line, and it frequently happens that a long monosyllabic word or syllable will not, as the line is first spaced, go in at the end, and to drive out which the line would appear with great gaps; he must therefore change his spaces for thinner, some of which, from their being very thin are called hair-spaces.

The line having been completed, the rule is drawn out and placed over or upon that line, and the compositor proceeds with the text, and so on with the succeeding lines, until his composing-stick is filed, which takes perhaps ten or twelve lines of middling-sized type. He then places the rule in front of the last line, and fixing his forefingers of each hand in front of the rule, he presses the middle fingers up against the sides of the lines, and his thumbs behind the first lines, raising the whole out of the composing-stick at once. He thus conveys the stickful to the galley, disengaging the thumbs as he places the lines against the head of the galley, or against the lines that have been previously emptied and placed thereon.—Hansard.