the flesh. Were this not the
case, it would be impossible for the binder to supply the needs of his
customers, as the output does not keep pace with the constantly
increasing demand. In fact, binders are constantly looking for
substitutes, but, after all, there is nothing so good as leather.

THE BINDING

By Jesse Fellowes Tapley.

The changes in the methods of bookbinding during the last sixty years
have been very great, and during the last twenty-five years the
invention of machines for doing the work rapidly has created almost a
revolution in the art.

Fifty years ago the pay of journeymen bookbinders ranged from eight to
ten dollars a week, for a day of ten hours, and the cost of binding an
ordinary 12mo volume of 500 pages in cloth was from sixteen to
eighteen cents. To-day the same volume can be bound for eight to ten
cents, with the pay of the journeyman from eighteen to twenty dollars
a week, for a day of nine hours. The pay of girls has, as a general
thing, been proportionally increased, while the amount of work they
can turn out with the newly invented machinery is triple as much as
could be done by hand, and on some branches of the work it is more
than six times as much.

The first process of making a book is the folding. The sheets are
usually printed so as to fold in sections of sixteen pages, with
signature figures, as 1, 2, 3, or alphabet letters, as A, B, C,
printed at the bottom of the first page of each section, for the
guidance of the binder in placing the signatures in regular order for
gathering the book.

Usually two or four forms are printed on one sheet. One girl could
fold by hand from 3500 to 4000 sections of 16 pages a day. With modern
machines the range is from 17,000 to 48,000, according to the make of
the machine and whether it is equipped with an automatic feeder or
not.

There are three styles of machines in general use. The point machine,
fed by hand, has needle points on the feed board, on which is placed
the sheet, which has proper holes made by the printing press. The next
is called a drop-roll machine, which, if equipped with an automatic
feeder, will fold 24,000 sections a day, delivering two sections at
each revolution. The next is called a quadruple machine, which, with
an automatic feeder, will fold 48,000 sections a day or as many as
twelve girls could do by hand.

In binderies where large editions of books are done, it would be
almost impossible to keep the