Port -Folios . 
363 
tion are earnest as they are extensive, I am induced to 
lay before that body a port-folio of my construction, 
which I persuade myself possesses every advantage that 
can be wished. 
The difficulty, or rather the impossibility of obtaining 
cases or port-folios, as large as are sometimes requisite, 
has given rise to many expensive contrivances, to the 
same end ; or large prints, &c. must be kept in rolls, to 
their almost certain destruction, by frequency of rolling ; 
or at least they are thus exposed to the danger of being 
crushed by accident. Milled pasteboards, of which 
port-folios are made, are not manufactured above a cer- 
tain moderate size : to exceed that size in a port-folio, is 
an undertaking of no inconsiderable trouble, in pasting, 
glueing, and pressing them together. On inquiring of 
Mr. Newman, of Soho-square, (a manufacturer of these 
articles,) how he managed to make port-folios above the 
ordinary dimensions, he informed me, it was an undertak- 
ing of trouble, and related his having made one for a 
gentleman, by attaching sixteen of the largest milled 
boards together; that the materials alone cost five gui- 
neas ; and that its weight was greater than one man could 
lift. 
My method of construction obviates all disadvantages — - 
weight, expense, and trouble ; and port folios of any di- 
mensions may very readily be manufactured by the sim- 
ple application of two straining-frames, covered on both 
sides with canvas, and papered; and connected, as all 
port-folios are, by leather at the back, or with wooden 
backs, the sides being connected by hinges. Thus a 
port-folio may be made capable of holding the largest 
cartoons, maps, and prints ; and possessing another great 
advantage, besides that of not bellying or swagging, when 
laid against a wall, as those constructed of pasteboard 
