16 ON THE PAPER MANUFACTURE. 



tion reached the astounding rate of 50 per cent. The lowest propor- 

 tion of adulteration was 20 per cent., and the ingredients employed were 

 various, and included gypsum, China clay, silica and starch." Mr. Eck- 

 worth may well remark that such a state of things may appear almost in- 

 credible. Had he found low-class papers very largely adulterated it would 

 not have excited surprise, but that from 20 to 50 per cent, of mineral 

 ingredients should have been found in first-class British-made papers, 

 is a circumstance demanding critical attention. In the matter of low 

 printings the paper manufacture seems to be gradually drifting into 

 a dilemma difficult of explication. The shout " Cotton is King" went 

 forth from the Confederate States of America as the key-note of a 

 national programme. Whether the assertion properly belongs to the 

 region of fact or to that of fiction remains to be proved. From the 

 reading masses in this empire there has also gone forth a shout " Penny 

 is King," and as with Cotton, it remains to be proved whether the 

 prophecy shall be recorded among the things that were, or be graven 

 in the annals of our periodical literature as indisputable truth. Of course 

 the great Penny feature of the day is the cheap daily newspaper ; 

 and the problem is not yet by any means satisfactorily solved whether a 

 newspaper with any just pretension to literary excellence, can give a sheet 

 of decent paper measuring 46J X 35J, and weighing say 60 lbs. to the 

 ream for one penny. The quantity of paper consumed weekly by the 

 cheap newspaper press is something enormous, and the quality of the paper 

 ranges from execrable to very common, with a fluctuating medium which 

 may be described as bad. Of straw paper, ordinarily so-called, there is no 

 lack, and of low rag paper with a mixture of raw fibre there is an abund- 

 ance ; but there is at the same time an enormous quantity of nonde- 

 script stuff which it would puzzle any paper-maker in the three kingdoms 

 to describe. The raw material, whatever its kind, may be tolerably 

 decent, but the make is usually of the most discreditable character, and 

 the finish destitute of the mark which experience never fails to leave 

 even on the lo vest manufactured product. We are not without know- 

 ledge that within the last few years, and especially since the repeal of the 

 duty, the number of paper-makers in this country has slightly increased, 

 it would be illiberal to deny that in some instances the trade if it has not 

 and gained, has, at all events, suffered no loss of reputation from the 

 accession ; but we cannot close our eyes to the fact that there are 

 others, and the number is not a few, who have signally nistaken their 

 calling, and who have been furnishing the markets, as the fruits of their 

 incompetence, with much of the paper which we feel called upon so 

 unhesitatingly to condemn. An amateur paper-maker is, generally 

 speaking, a dangerous specimen of the genus homo, and it cannot be 

 sufficiently impressed upon such that, although the science of paper- 

 making may be rapidly mastered by those whose natural taste and 

 ancillary knowledge qualifies them for the pursuit, there are others, the 

 standard of whose iiltimate excellence must be mediocrity, resulting, 

 in many cases, in disappointment and disaster. 



