PRINTING BLOCKS ELECTRO 651 



motion he throws off the several letters into their various boxes. Distribution is 

 performed four times faster than composition. 



After the sheets have been printed on both sides, the warehouseman takes them 

 away, and hangs them up on poles to dry, varying the number of sheets hung up 

 together from five or six to ten or eleven, according to the heat of the room, or the 

 pressure of business. When dry the sheets are taken down from the poles, carefully 

 knocked up and put away in the warehouse in piles ; and when the book is nearly 

 finished from ten to fourteen consecutive sheets are laid upon the gathering-board 

 in order, and collected sheet by sheet by boys, who deposit each gathering in a 

 heap at the end of the table, so constructed that when a boy has deposited his 

 gathering he has only to turn himself and begin again. These gatherings are then 

 carefully collated, to ascertain that the different sheets are correct and in order, and 

 folded up the middle. When the work is finished the gatherings are put together, or 

 in books, one of each, which forms a copy of the work, and pressed. The work is now 

 completed, and awaits the order of the bookseller, &c., to deliver the copies to the 

 bookbinder. 



Printing in Colours. In many of the old printed books, the initial letters, and 

 occasionally other parts, were printed in red. This was done by two workings at 

 press, and was an imitation of the earlier fashion of illuminating MSS. The practice 

 is still followed in some almanacs, the saints' days and holidays being 'red-letter days." 

 Some ingenious contrivances have been devised for working in various colours ; and 

 a few years since a curious book was written and published on the subject by 

 Mr. Savage. Still more recently, printing in gold and other metals has been practised. 

 This is done by printing with a sort of size, and afterwards applying the metal-leaf. 

 But the specimens of printing in colours produced by Mr. Kronheim are really 

 beautiful as works of art. The copy picture is made in colours, and the blocks for 

 printing each colour and shade are cut in relief on ' surface metal ' plates, consisting 

 of perfectly smooth plates of type-metal. These plates are then printed by the 

 ordinary method, great care, however, being taken that each colour falls in its right 

 place. 



The following is the mode of printing two or more ' rainbow tints ' at the same 

 time : Take the cut, ink it well and rather full, with black ink, and get a perfect 

 impression on paper not very damp ; then lay the face of the printed paper carefully 

 on the surface of the block prepared for engraving the whites on the tinted ground, 

 and give it a good soft pull. This will transfer to the tint block a facsimile of the 

 wood-engraving itself. This block is then handed over to the engraver, who cuts 

 out the whites for the clouds, shadows, water, &c., according to his taste, and with a 

 view to effect. The tint-block is printed first, and then the black block is put to 

 press, and the pressman must be careful in distributing his different inks to make them 

 fade away and blend at the given points. This is an easy matter after a little practice. 



Laws affecting the Press. As to the laws relating to the press, see 39 Geo. III. c. 79, 

 amended by 51 Geo. III. c. 65, and 2 & 3 Viet. c. 12. There is no censorship over 

 the press ; which is, however, amenable to the remedy of an injured party, or to the 

 correction of criminal justice (Wharton's Law Lex. 2nd ed. I860). R. J. CL 



PRINTING BLOCKS ELECTRO. Two patents taken out by Mr. H. G. 

 Collins are likely to prove of essential service to the publishing world. By the one 

 he is enabled to take on vulcanised caoutchouc, prepared with an equally elastic 

 surface, an impression in transfer from any steel- or copper-plate, wood-block, 

 stereotype, lithographic-stone, or, in fact, from an original drawing, if done in 

 transfer-ink or transfer-paper, and increase or reduce the same to any required size. 

 This is effected by expanding the india-rubber in one case, after it has received the 

 impression ; and in the other, before the impression is made. In the first instance, 

 the impression is enlarged as the elastic material expands ; in the other it is reduced 

 by allowing the already expanded india-rubber to contract in its frame : then laying 

 the expanded or contracted copy down upon stone, and treating it after the usual 

 manner of lithography. This presents a vast field for adapting the plates of any work 

 of acknowledged merit which may have cost some hundreds or thousands of pounds, 

 and years to produce, to the wants of the public in these days of cheap and well- 

 illustrated literature, by bringing out the same works in a reduced size, which, but 

 for this plan, no publisher would think of attempting. Many plates also, such as 

 portraits, public buildings, or landscapes, may be enlarged and issued separately. 

 This last application is particularly suitable for maps, as any one, from the size of a 

 school atlas, may be taken and made to serve for large wall-maps without the cost 

 of engraving the same. The rapidity with which this alteration of size can be ac- 

 complished is not among the least of its recommendations ; for an engraving that 

 would take several months in the ordinary mode may be completed in from two to 

 three days. Two remarkable instances of the excellent reductions obtainable by this 



