Note 27 to Chapter 5 of the author's Pegasus in Harness: Victorian Publishing and W. M. Thackeray, which University Press of Virginia published in 1992. It has been included in the Victorian Web with the kind permission of the author, who of course retains copyright.
When an alteration in standing type involve, the substitution of only one character for another, the effect on the rest of the line is usually too small to be noticeable even under careful examination, but larger changes, particularly if the total number of characters in the line is affected, cause alterations in the arrangement of words contiguous to the change which are readily seen in a collating machine. Often the corrector changes the spacing of contiguous words to achieve an even balance of spacing along the line. When similar alterations are made in stereotyped plates, such aesthetic considerations are a luxury generally out of reach. The line (indeed the page) is a solid piece of metal which cannot be moved and pushed about; the new reading replaces the old reading and contiguous words remain frozen in place. The offending letter or word is chiseled off and a replacement "sweated" (soldered) in its place. If the resulting disproportionate spacing is too obvious, the whole line or perhaps two or three lines are reset, and the original plate is cut away to make way for the new material, which can be plated first or can be mounted in the press as standing type along with the places. Most of the alterations in numbers 2-6 and 14-20 of Vanity Fair have an appearance compatible with the effects of changes in plates. Those that do not (confined to numbers 2, 3, and 5) are discussed further in the text and identified with an asterisk in Appendix C, chart 3.
Last modified: 4 April 2001