the paper with a
foreign and heavy material. Moreover, the thickness of the pasteboard
cover is saved on the shelves, and even if a substitute for it is
adopted, it is in the form of a light pasteboard case that holds several
volumes at once. Such a cover is capable of being lettered on the back,
though the Chinese seem not to think this necessary, but put their title
labels on the side. Really, the back of the Chinese book is to us its
most foreign feature. It is a raw edge, not protected by the cover, and
differs from the front only in consisting of the edges of single leaves
instead of folds. It is in fact a survival from the days before the
invention of paper, when books were printed on silk, the raw edge of
which would fray and was therefore consigned to the position where it
would have the least wear and would do the least harm if worn.

But there is no reason why, in Europeanizing the Chinese book, the
corner guard should not be extended the whole length of the back and
bear the ordinary lettering. With this slight difference the Chinese
book would be equipped to enter the lists on fairly even terms against
the prevailing occidental type of book, which has come down to us from
the ancient Roman codex through the parchment book, of which ours is
only a paper imitation. In "The Periodical," referred to, four pages
instead of two were printed at once, or, at least, four constitute a
fold. The sheets are stitched through with thread--they might, of
course, have been wire-stitched--and then a paper cover is pasted on, as
in the case of any magazine or paper-bound book. But in this process the
beauty of the Chinese binding disappears, though the Chinese do the
same with their cheapest pamphlets. In these days, when lightness and
easy handling are such popular features in books, what publisher will
take up the book form that for two thousand years has enshrined the
wisdom of the Flowery Kingdom, and by trifling adaptations here and
there make it his own and ours?

THICK PAPER AND THIN

Sir Hiram Maxim, the knight from Maine, prophesies that we shall change
our religion twenty times in the next twenty thousand years. In the last
two thousand years we have changed our book material twice, from papyrus
to parchment and from parchment to paper, with a consequent change of
the book form from the roll to the codex. Shall we therefore change our
book material twenty times in the next twenty thousand years? Only time