--No.
IV.
| Annotations | |
| THOSE who have
examined the early history of printing will scarcely have failed to see
how the ordinary laws of demand and supply have regulated the progress of
this art, whose productions might, at first sight, appear to form an exception
to other productions required by the necessities of mankind. There can be
little doubt, we think, that when several ingenious men were, at the same
moment, applying their skill to the discovery or perfection of a rapid mode
of multiplying copies of books, there was a demand for books which could
not well be supplied by the existing process of writing. That demand had
doubtless been created by the anxiety to think for themselves, which had
sprung up amongst the laity of Catholic Europe. There was a very general
desire amongst the wealthier classes to obtain a knowledge of the principles
of their religion from the fountainhead,--the Bible. The desire could not
be gratified except at an enormous cost. Printing was at last discovered;
and Bibles were produced without limitation of number. The instant, therefore,
that the demand for Bibles could be supplied, the supply acted upon the
demand, by increasing it in every direction; and when it was found that
not only Bibles but many other books of real value, such as copies of the
ancient classics, could be produced with a facility equal to the wants of
every purchaser, books at once became a large branch of commerce, and the
presses of the first printers never lacked employment. The purchasers of
books, however, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, were almost wholly
confined to the class of nobles, and those of the richer citizens and scholars
by profession. It was a very long time before the influence of the press
had produced any direct effect upon the habits of the great mass of the
people. In our own country, the many hundreds of pamphlets of political
and religious controversy that were issued during the times of the civil
wars, were unknown to the larger portion of those who took sides in the
quarrel. They were directed to the important body of landed proprietors,
and the no less important leaders of the people in towns; and they were
formed to influence, as they were in great part produced by, the active
spirits, whether of the church, the bar, or the senate, |
| Annotations | |
| who were the most
prominent directors of public opinion. It was not till the system of periodical
literature was fairly established, and that newspapers first, and magazines
and reviews subsequently, had taken hold of the popular mind, that the productions
of the press could be said to be in demand amongst the people generally.
Up to our own times that demand has been limited to very narrow bounds;
and the circumstances by which it has been extended are as remarkable as
those which accompanied the progress of the original invention of printing.
The same principle of demand going before supply, and the same reaction
of supply upon demand, will be found to have marked the operations of the
printing press in this country, during the last five and twenty years, as
distinctly as they marked them throughout Europe in the latter part of the
fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth. We will shortly recapitulate
these circumstances. | |
| A few years
after the commencement of the present century, a system of education, which
is now known throughout Europe as that of mutual instruction, was
introduced into this country. In whatever mode this system was called into
action, its first experiments soon demonstrated that, through it, education
might be bestowed at a much cheaper rate than had ever before been considered
practicable. This success encouraged the friends of education to exertions
quite unexampled; and the British and Foreign School Society, and the National
Society, had, in a very few years, taught some thousands of children to
read and write, who, without the new arrangements which had been brought
into practice, would in great part have remained completely untaught. A
demand for books of a new class was thus preparing on every side. The demand
would not be very sudden or very urgent; but it would still exist and would
become stronger and stronger till a supply was in some degree provided for
it. It would act, too, indirectly but surely upon that portion of society
whose demand for knowledge had already been in part supplied. The principle
of educating the humblest in the scale of society would necessarily give
an impulse to the education of the class immediately above them. The impulse
would indeed be least felt by the large establishments for education at
the other end of the scale; and thus, whilst the children of the peasant
and the tradesman would learn many valuable lessons through the influence
of a desire for knowledge for its own sake, and of love for their instructors,
the boys of many of our great public schools would long remain acquiring
only a knowledge of words and not of things, and influenced chiefly by a
degrading fear of brutal punishment. The demand for knowledge thus created,
and daily gathering strength amongst the bulk of the people, could not be
adequately supplied twenty years ago by the mechanical inventions then employed
in the art of printing. Exactly in the same way as the demand for knowledge
which began to agitate men's minds, about the middle of the fifteenth century,
produced the invention of printing, so the great extension of the demand
in England, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, produced those mechanical
improvements which have created a new era in the typographical art. | mutual instruction:
Mutual instruction, or self-tuition, was a methodology associated with the
Madras system of education. Students were grouped according to their proficiency
level and then paired into tutors and pupils so that more advanced scholars
could monitor those who were less proficient. The method was employed in
National Society schools, while the British and Foreign School Society implemented
a similar approach called the Pupil Teacher System. (Bartley) British and Foreign School Society: Founded in 1808 by Joseph Lancaster (b. 1778), William Corston, and Joseph Fox, the British and Foreign School Society was devoted to providing free education for the poor. Prior to 1814 it was known as The Institution for Promoting the Education of the Labouring and Manufacturing Classes of Society, of every Religious Persuasion." (Bartley; Binns) National Society: The National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church was founded in 1811 on the principle "that the National Religion of the country should be made the foundation of national education, which should be the first and chief thing taught to the Poor." Teaching in National Society schools was based on a system of self-tuition or mutual instruction. (Bartley; Binns) |
| In the 'Ancient view of a Dutch
Printing-office,' given at the head of the 'Penny Magazine,' No. 107, the
most rudely constructed of the early printing-presses is there shown. It
will be seen that this instrument is nothing more than a common screw-press,--such
as a cheese-press or a napkin-press,--with a contrivance for running the
form of types under the screw after the form is inked. It
is evident that this mode of obtaining an impression must have been very
laborious and very slow. As the screw must have come down upon the types
with a dead pull,--that is, as the table upon which the types were placed
was solid and unyielding,--great care must have been required to prevent
the pressure being so hard as to injure the face of the letters. These defects
were at last remedied by an ingenious Dutch mechanic, Willem Jansen Blaew,
who carried on the business of a mathematical-instrument maker at Amsterdam;
in which business he had received instruction and encouragement from the
great Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe. The improvements in Blaew's presses
do not require to be particularly described. It may be sufficient to mention
that the head of the press in which the screw worked, as well as the bed
upon which the table containing the form of types rested, were yielding;
and that the screw consisted of three or four worms, according to the size
of the cylinder. In this way the pressure was rapidly communicated from
the screw to the types; and the spring above and below gave a sharpness
to the impression, while it prevented it being too hard. Blaew's presses
gradually drove out the more ancient press; but even as recently as the
year 1770, Luckombe, in his 'History of Printing' then published, says,
''There are two sorts of presses in use, the old and the new fashioned;
the old sort till of late years were the only presses used in England."
We subjoin a representation of Blaew's "new-fashioned" press,
with which at the beginning of the present century all the printing of Europe
was performed. | Willem Jansen Blaew: Willem Janszoon Blaeu
(1571-1638), Dutch astronomer, cartographer, geographer, printer, and mechanic.
He introduced several innovations to the printing press around 1620. (Clair) Tycho Brahe: Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), Danish astronomer and author. (AH) Luckombe, in his `History of Printing,': Philip Luckombe (d. 1803), printer, editor, and writer. His publications include A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing (1770) and The History and Art of Printing (two parts, 1771). (DNB) |
| The stereotype improvements of
Lord Stanhope, which we have already described, and the printing-press | |
 |
| Annotations | |
| invented by that
nobleman, which bears his name, offered the first great practical improvements
in the art of printing, with the exception of Blaew's press that had been
called into operation during a period of 350 years. The Stanhope press is
represented in the woodcut at the head of this number. It is unnecessary
for us minutely to describe this very ingenious instrument. It is as superior
to Blaew's wooden press as that was to the rude press that preceded it.
Being composed entirely of iron, the surfaces brought into contact when
the impression is given are perfectly level; and the combination of levers
which give motion to the screw diminish the labour of the workman, while
they add to its efficiency. This invention undoubtedly enabled printing
of a better average quality to be produced; but it added very slightly to
the speed with which impressions could be thrown off. Both at the Stanhope
press and at the wooden press the same general rate of work was maintained,
namely, 250 impressions on one side of a sheet per hour, to be produced
by the joint labours of two men, one inking the types, the other laying
on the sheet and giving the pressure. | |
| While the
mechanical power of the printing-press had remained for so many years pretty
much the same as upon the first introduction of the art, the mode in which
the ink was applied to the types had been quite unchanged for three centuries
and a half: In the 'View of a Dutch Printing-office' it will be seen that
the man at the second press is putting the ink on the types with two circular
cushions, one of which he holds in each hand. These cushions, technically
called balls, were universally used in printing twenty years ago.
As the ancient weaver was expected to make his own loom, so, even within
these few years, the division of labour was so imperfectly applied to printing
that the pressman was expected to make his own balls. A very rude and nasty
process this was. The sheepskins, called pelts, were prepared in the printing-office,
where the wool with which they were stuffed was also carded; and these balls,
thus manufactured by a man whose general work was entirely of a different
nature, required the expenditure of at least half an hour's labour every
day in a very disagreeable operation, by which they were kept soft. The
quantity of ink wasted by these balls was enormous; so much so, that we
have heard an ink-maker--who, like many other unthinking people, conceived
that the waste of an article is an encouragement to production--lament that
if he sold more ink in consequence of the extended demand for ink created
by the printing machine, his trade was to the same extent injured by the
diminution of the waste that attended the old operations of the printing-press.
The printer's balls have now been superseded, and their waste of material
and time got rid of; by an invention applicable not only to printing by
machinery, but printing by hand. | |
| Such was
the state of the press department of printing, not only in England, but
throughout the world, till the year 1814. As several approaches had been
made before the time of Faust to the principle of printing books from moveable
types, so the principle of producing impressions from a cylinder, and of
inking the types by a roller, which are the great principles of the printing
machine, had been discovered in this country as early as the year 1790.
In that year Mr. William Nicholson took out a patent for certain improvements
in printing, the specification of which clearly shows that to him belongs
the first suggestion of printings from cylinders. But this inventor, like
many other ingenious men, was led astray by a part of his project, which
was highly difficult, if not impracticable, to the neglect of that portion
of his plan which, since his time has been brought into the most perfect
operation. Nicholson's patent was never acted upon. The
first maker of a printing machine was Mr. Koenig, a native of Saxony; and
the first sheet of paper printed by cylinders, and by steam, was the Times
newspaper of the 28th November, 1814. The machine thus for the first time
brought into action, was that of Mr. Koenig. | Faust: See page
422. Mr. William Nicholson: William Nicholson (1753-1815), scientist and inventor. In 1790 he took out a patent on a machine for printing on linen, cotton, woolens, and other materials, using impressions from a cylindrical surface. (DNB) Mr. Koenig: Friedrich Koenig (1774-1833) invented a cylinder steam press with rollers for inking, capable of printing 1,100 single-sided sheets per hour. The Times installed two of Koenig's steam presses in November 1814. In 1816 Koening and his partner Andreas Bauer built a perfecting machine, that is, one that would print both sides of the paper. (Clair; Handover) |
| Before we proceed to a description
of the printing machine, or take a view of its general effects upon the
diffusion of knowledge, let us imagine a state of things in which the demand
for works of large numbers should have gone on increasing while the mechanical
means of supplying that demand had remained stationary--had remained as
they were at the beginning of the present century. Before the invention
of stereotyping it was necessary to print off considerable impressions of
the few books in general demand, such as bibles and prayer-books, that the
cost of composition might be so far divided as to allow the book to be sold
cheap: with several school-books, also, it was not uncommon to go to press
with an edition of 10,000 copies. Two men, working eight hours a day each,
would produce 1000 perfect impressions (impressions on each side) of a sheet
per day; and thus if a book consisted of twenty sheets, (the size of an
ordinary school-book,) one press would produce the twenty sheets in 200
days. If a printer, therefore, were engaged in the production of such a
school-book, who could only devote one press to the operation, it would
require nearly three quarters of a year to complete 10,000 copies of that
work. It is thus evident, that if the work were to be published in a given
day, it must begin to be printed at least three-quarters of a year before
it could be published; and that there must be a considerable outlay of capital
in paper and in printing for a long time before any return could be expected.
This advance of capital would have a necessary influence on the price of
the book, in addition to the difference of the cost of working by hand as
compared with working by machinery; and there probably the inconvenience
of the tedious progress we have described would stop. | the invention of stereotyping: see p. 470. |
| But take a case which
would allow no time for this long preparation. Take a daily newspaper, for
instance, of which great part of the news must be collected, and written,
and printed within twenty-four hours. Before the application of machinery
to the printing of newspapers, in 1814, there were as many daily London
newspapers as at present; but their average size was much smaller than those
now published. The number of each paper printed was less than at present;
and the later news was much more incompletely given. The mechanical difficulties
of printing a large number within a limited time required to be overcome
by arrangements which involved considerable expense; and thus less capital
was left to be expended upon that branch of the outlay by which the excellence
of a newspaper is mainly determined,--namely, the novelty, the completeness,
and the accuracy of its intelligence. Let us take, for example, the 'Times'
newspaper for some years prior to 1814, when it began to be printed by machinery.
When that paper was originally established, somewhere about forty years
ago, the present system of reporting speeches in parliament on the same
night that they were spoken was scarcely ever attempted. A few lines mentioning
the subject of the debate, and the names of the principal speakers, were
sometimes given; but anything like a sketch of the general debate, or a
report of any remarkable speech, was deferred to a future day, if it were
published at all. Mr. William Woodfall, the son of the celebrated printer
of the 'Public Advertiser,' in which the letters of Junius first appeared,
undertook, without any assistance, the arduous task of reporting the debates
of both Houses of Parliament, day by day, in his father's paper, and afterwards
in other daily journals. This person possessed a most extraordinary memory,
as well as wonderful powers of literary labour. It is asserted that he has
been shown to sit through a long debate of | Mr. William Woodfall: William Woodfall (1746-1803),
parliamentary reporter and drama critic. He edited the London Packet
from 1772 to 1774, and worked for the Morning Chronicle from 1774
until 1789, when he established The Diary, in which he published
reports of parliamentary debates. (DNB) `Public Advertiser': The Public Advertiser was printed by Henry Woodfall (1719-1747) and later by his son Henry Sampson Woodfall. (DNB) Junius: Pen name of the author of a series of letters of political invective published in the Public Advertiser from January 1769 to January 1772. The identity of Junius has never been proven, although it is generally thought to have been Sir Philip Francis (1740-1818). (Junius) |
| Annotations | |
| APPARATUS FOR GIVING
MOTION TO THE MACHINE.--A. The Rigger, a wheel revolving upon a shaft which
is turned by the Steam Engine.--B. An endless strap for transmitting the
motion of the rigger, A, to the machine.--C. The "Dead" and "Live
Riggers," two wheels, the former one moving freely on its axis without
connexion with any part of the machine, and upon which the endless strap
is slipped when it is desirable to stop it; and the other (the outer one)
turning on a spindle, which passes horizontally beneath the bed of the machine,
and which carries two small cogged wheels for communicating the motion of
the strap to all parts of the machine. The first of these, called the driving
pinion, lies immediately alongside the dead rigger, and, by turning the
first great cogged wheel, puts the whole of the printing cylinders, drums,
&c., in motion. The second, called the upright bevilled wheel,
is borne on the end of the pinion, and is situated midway under the bed
of the machine;--this bevilled wheel, through the intervention of an horizontal
bevilled wheel, a sliding rack, and some other contrivances, gives to the
bed or table of the machine upon which the type rests, a horizontal motion
backwards and forwards. | |
| APPARATUS
FOR INKING.--D. The Inking Table. This is supplied with ink by a vibrating
roller, which, as it rises, touches another roller called the Doctor,
thickly covered with ink from the reservoir, against which it is placed,
and, as it touches it, carries off by contact a portion of the viscid ink
along its whole length; it then descends, and for a moment slightly pressing
itself upon the end of the table, leaves on a portion of the ink which it
had previously taken from the doctor. This ink is then spread over the surface
of the table by three inking rollers, and afterwards taken from it and distributed
over the face of the type by two or three other rollers. | |
| APPARATUS
FOR PRINTING.--E. The Web Roller.--F. The Smoothing Roller.--G. The Entering
Drum.--H. The First Impression Cylinder.--I. K. The First and Second Paper
Drums.--L. The Second Impression Cylinder.--M. A sheet of white paper placed
by the "laying-on boy" on what is called the web. From this, by
a contrivance which could not be shown in the engraving, the sheet is caught
and carried under the smoothing roller, F, where it is closely bound to
the entering drum, G, by five endless tapes, which then conduct it
smoothly and accurately through the following operations. It is carried
round the entering drum and delivered to the first impression cylinder,
H, where, in passing under it, it receives on one side, by a rolling pressure,
the impression of the first forms of type; it is then carried by the tapes
over the second and under the third paper drums, I and K,
to the second impression cylinder, L, where it is "perfected,"
or printed on the remaining blank side, and thrown out to the "taking-off
boy," who sits waiting to receive it, and whose hand is shown under
K. |
| Annotations | |
| by hand is limited,
as we have seen, by certain natural obstacles, which could not be passed
with profit to those concerned in the production. At any rate the difference
in the cost of printing by machinery and printing by hand would either have
doubled the price of the 'Penny Magazine,' or in the same proportion diminished
its size and its quality. Under those circumstances a sale at twenty thousand
would have been a large sale. The saving of labour and the saving of time
by the printing machine enable, in a great degree, this little work to be
published at its present cost, and to be delivered, without any limitation
to its supply, at regular periodical intervals throughout the United Kingdom.
Without this invention a demand beyond the power of a press or two to meet
would have become embarrassing. The work would have been perpetually out
of print, as a failure in the supply of a book is termed. If extraordinary
efforts had been made to prevent this, great expenses would have been created
by the irregular exertion. The commercial difficulties of attempting a supply
beyond the ordinary power of the mechanical means employed would have been
insurmountable--the demand could not have been met. | |
| Having
thus explained the general advantages of the printing machine for meeting
the demand which now exists for books of large numbers, we will conduct
our readers to Mr. Clowes's printing establishment, where there are more
printing machines at work than at any other office in the world. It may
be convenient, how ever, first to refer to the engraving of the sort of
printing machine there principally employed, with the description of its
several parts. | |
| The visitor
to Mr. Clowes's office will be conducted into a room in which there are
ten machines generally in full work. In an opposite room are six similar
machines. The power which sets these in motion is supplied by two steam-engines.
Upon entering the machine-room the stranger will naturally feel distracted
by the din of so many wheels and cylinders in action; and if his imagination
should present to him a picture of the effects which such instruments are
producing and will produce, upon the condition of mankind, it may require
some effort of the mind to understand the mode in which any particular machine
does its work. Let us begin with one on which the 'Penny Magazine' is preparing
to be printed off. One man, and sometimes two men, are engaged in what is
technically called making ready; and this with stereotype plates
is a tedious and delicate operation. The plates are secured upon wooden
blocks by which they are raised to the height of moveable types; but then,
with every care in casting, and in the subsequent turning operation, these
plates, unlike moveable types, do not present a perfectly plane surface.
There are hollow parts which must be brought up by careful adjustment; and
this is effected by placing pieces of this paper under any point where the
impression is faint. This process often occupies six or seven hours, particularly
where there are casts from wood-cuts. Let us suppose it completed. Upon
the solid steel table at each end of the machine lie the eight pages which
print one side of the sheet. At the top of the machine, where the laying
on boy stands, is a heap of wet paper. The visitor will have seen the process
of wetting previously to entering the machine-room. Each quire of paper
is dipped two or three times, according to its thickness, in a trough of
water; and being opened is subjected, first to moderate pressure, and afterwards
to the action of a powerful press, till the moisture is equally diffused
through the whole heap. If the paper were not wetted, the ink, which is
a composition of oil and lamp-black, would lie upon the surface and smear.
To return to the machine. The signal being given by the director of the
work, the 'laying-on boy turns a small handle, and the moving power of the
strap connected with the engine is immediately communicated. Some ten or
twenty spoiled sheets are first passed over the types to remove any dirt
or moisture. If the director is satisfied, the boy begins to lay on the
white paper. He places the sheet upon a flat table before him, with its
edge ready to be seized by the apparatus for conveying it upon the drum.
At the first movement of the great wheels the inking apparatus at each end
has been set in motion. The steel cylinder attached to the reservoir of
ink has begun slowly to move,--the 'doctor' has risen to touch that cylinder
for an instant, and thus receive its supply of ink,--the inking-table has
passed under the 'doctor' and carried off that supply--and the distributing-rollers
have spread it equally over the surface of the table. This surface having
passed under the inking-rollers, communicates the supply to them; and they
in turn impart it to the form which is to be printed. All these beautiful
operations are accomplished in the fifteenth part of a minute, by the travelling
backward and forward of the carriage or table upon which the form
tests. Each roller revolves upon an axis which is fixed. At the moment when
the form at the back of the machine is passing under the inking-roller,
the sheet, which the boy has carefully laid upon the table before him, is
caught in the web-roller and conveyed to the endless bands of tapes which
pass it over the first impression cylinder. It is here seized tightly by
the bands, which fall between the pages and on the outer margins. The moment
after the sheet is seized upon the first cylinder, the form passes
under that cylinder, and the paper being brought in contact with it receives
an impression on one side. To give the impression on the other side the
sheet is to be turned over; and this is effected by the two drums in the
centre of the machine. The endless tapes never lose their grasp of the sheet,
although they allow it to be reversed. When the impression has been given
by the first cylinder, the second form of tapes at the other end
of the table has been inked. The drums have conveyed the sheet during this
inking upon the second cylinder; it is brought into contact with the types;
and the operation is complete. | |
| The machine
which we have thus imperfectly described is a most important improvement
of Koenig's original invention. That, like most first attempts, was extremely
complicated. It possessed sixty wheels. Applegath and Cowper's machine has
sixteen only. The inking apparatus of this machine is by far the most complete
and economical that ever was invented. Nothing can be more perfect than
the distribution of the ink and its application to the types. It has therefore
entirely superseded Koenig's machine: and as the patent has expired, its
use is rapidly extending, not only in England, but throughout Europe. Our
limits will not permit us to attempt any description of the other machines
which are employed in London. The most remarkable are the two now used by
the 'Times' newspaper; each of which produces four thousand impressions
per hour on one side of a sheet. These machines are modifications of Applegath's
and Cowper's; and the additional speed is gained by having the sheets laid
on at four different points instead of at one, and by employing four printing
cylinders to press in succession upon one form. The hand machine
of Napier, which is a most ingenious invention, is in use in several London
offices. | Applegath and Cowper: Augustus
Applegath (1789-1871) and his brother-in-law Edward Cowper (1790-1852) jointly
invented a four-cylinder printing machine in 1827, which they built for
the Times. This hand-fed machine could print 4,000 sheets per hour.
Applegath founded a printing-office in London which was later acquired by
William Clowes. (DNB; Handover) The hand machine of Napier: A platen machine manufactured in London by David Napier (1785-1873). Napier's "Nay-Peer," introduced in 1824, was an innovative perfecting machine that the book printer could operate manually. (Annals; Hansard) |
| When a newspaper is printed off,
it is at once removed from the machine or the press to the publisher's counter,
and then sold wet to the distributors. It is important that the 'Penny Magazine'
should be delivered dry, especially those numbers which are made up into
parts. A printer's warehouse, from which books are issued in large quantities,
is a scene of great activity. The drying process is now a tolerably rapid
one, by the conveyance of steam or hot air through the drying rooms. The
sheets are here hung upon poles, and in a few hours acquire the necessary
hardness. They are next counted into quires; and if time permits, the quires
are made perfectly smooth and compact by heavy pressure. The |
| Annotations | |
| hydraulic press,
which is one of the most useful inventions of the late Mr. Joseph Bramah,
has in most printer's warehouses superseded the use of the common screw
press. | Mr. Joseph Bramah: Joseph Bramah (1748-1814),
inventor. He invented the hydraulic press in 1790. (Annals) |
| Our account of the processes
which unite for the production of a 'Penny Magazine' would be imperfect
did we not notice the business of the book-binder. The folding and sewing
of the weekly numbers and monthly parts which we issue furnish employment
to a great number of persons, principally women. The sheets are delivered
by the printer to various master book-binders, in whose workshops they are
made up into numbers, or parts, or volumes. The growing demand for particular
works, of which large quantities are issued, has given a remarkable impulse
to the bookbinding business of the metropolis. That business a few years
back was chiefly divided amongst three classes;--those who bound books elegantly
in leather,--an art which cannot he carried to perfection without great
division of labour, and by which division the fine book-binding of London
is still unrivaled;--those who were engaged in the commoner binding of schoolbooks
and cheap Bibles;--and those who devoted themselves to the rapid folding
and sewing of magazines, and other periodical works. But within the last
seven years the introduction of the cheap and yet neat and substantial binding
in cloth, which was first attempted by Mr. Pickering, of Chancery Lane,
has created a new branch of business, of equal importance to any of the
previously existing branches. By this new process that cheapness is obtained
which results from the performing any particular species of work upon a
large scale instead of in detail; and that expedition which is a consequence
of the minute division of labour which belongs to all considerable operations.
Take the present volume of the 'Penny Magazine' as an example. During the
last three or four months, 12,000 copies of each member the quantity required
for the first issue of the volume still have been delivered to two book-binders.
Each of these binders, at periods when his work-people are not very busily
employed, will have gone on folding each number as he successively received
it. In addition to the folding, he will have subjected parcels of each sheet
to the action of a rolling machine, by which the sheets are tightly squeezed,
so that the volume may be solid and flat | Mr. Pickering of Chancery Lane: William Pickering
(1796-1854), literary publisher and seller of rare books and manuscripts.
The books he published were renowned for the fineness of their typography.
He first began to bind books in boards covered with dyed cloth instead of
paper in 1825. (DNB) |
 | |
| when placed
within its covers. This solidity and fatness used to be attained by beating
the books with a large hammer,--a very laborious and very tedious operation,
which materially increased the cost of book-binding, and degraded a very
pretty art to a most toilsome task of heavy labour and little skill in one
of its processes. The book-binders, however, have clung to the practice
with great pertinacity, chiefly, perhaps, from its long existence amongst
them. In the following copy of an ancient print the book-binder is seen
hammering away, | |
 | |
| The 'Penny
Magazine' is, however, spared the infliction of these thumps; of which the
effect in newly-printed books is, in most cases, to render them perfectly
illegible by transferring the ink of one page to the opposite. The pressure
of the rolling machine can be much better adjusted to the state of the sheets. | |
| While each
number of the 'Penny Magazine' has thus been folded and made flat the covers
for the volumes have been at the same time preparing. The cloth has been
attached to the boards; and the gold lettering has been impressed upon the
back by a tool fixed in a stamping-press, which tool, being hollow, is heated
from within side, like the Italian-iron of the laundress. At the time when
this number is printing, the book-binders will have completed all these
preparations for the issue of the volume. The moment that they receive this--the
last sheet--from the printer, every exertion will be made to perfect the
work which has been so long in progress. In less than an hour the requisite
number of the sheet will be folded. Many women will be engaged in sewing
the sheets together; and as fast as they are sewed the book-binders will
be employed in cutting the edges, gluing the back, and fixing the volume
in its linen cover. Some hours will be required for the perfect drying of
the glue and paste; and the complete volume will again be subjected to the
action of a powerful press. But, on the 1st of January, 12,000 copies of
this volume will have been distributed throughout the kingdom. The final
process of its binding will have occupied five or six days. Ten years ago
the operation would have employed nearly as many months. | . |
URL: http://english.cla.umn.edu/lkd/pm/PMII.112.html Created 17 November 1995 Last modified 10 July 1996 Send comments and corrections to: Laurie Dickinson or Sarah Wadsworth