Hints on “Casting Up.”
The most simple and effective contrivance for casting-up work is, for every printer to set up, in vertical parallel lines, the m’s of each font in his office, with figures in succession beside them, and work them upon good hard paper, but little wet or pressed, which ought to be dried very gradually. If the cast-up work printed with the same type as these measures very little variation will be found; for if the measure and the measured page do vary from the measurement, the one is compensated by the other. But even this method can scarcely be trusted in setting the price with the compositor, since the difference between a thin and thick space will carry an en quadrat, and thus may give the turn in the 500 letters, so as to make 1,000 difference.