be read. All these imitations of leather are made of paper as their basis, and hence can never be proper substitutes for leather.

All torn leaves or plates in books should be at once mended by pasting a very thin onion-skin paper on both sides of the torn leaf, and pressing gently between leaves of sized paper until dry.

Corners made of vellum or parchment are more durable than any leather. When dry, the parchment becomes as hard almost as iron and resists falls or abrasion. To use it on books where the backs are of leather is a departure from the uniformity or harmony of style insisted upon by many, but in binding books that are to be greatly worn, use should come before beauty.

In rebinding, all maps or folded plates should be mounted on thin canvas, linen, or muslin, strong and fine, to protect them from inevitable tearing by long use. If a coarse or thick cloth is used, the maps will not fold or open easily and smoothly.

The cutting or trimming of the edges of books needs to be watched with jealous care. Few have reflected that the more margin a binder cuts off, the greater his profit on any job, white paper shavings having a very appreciable price by the pound. A strictly uncut book is in many American libraries a rarity. And of the books which go a second time to the binder, although at first uncut, how many retain their fair proportions of margin when they come back? You have all seen books in which the text has been cut into by the ruthless knife-machine of the binder. This is called "bleeding" a book, and there are no words strong enough to denounce this murderous and cold-blooded atrocity. The trimming of all books should be held within the narrowest limits-for the life of a book depends largely upon its preserving a good margin. Its only chance of be

ing able to stand a second rebinding may depend upon its being very little trimmed at its first. If it must be cut at all, charge your binder to take off the merest shaving from either edge.

Every new book or magazine added to the library, if uncut, should be carefully cut with a paper-knife before it goes into the hands of any reader. Spoiled or torn or ragged edges will be the penalty of neglecting this. You have seen people tear open the leaves of books and magazines with their fingers-a barbarism which renders him who would be guilty of it worthy of banishment from the resorts of civilization. In cutting books, the leaves should always be held firmly down-and the knife pressed evenly through the uncut leaves to the farthest verge of the back. Books which are cut in the loose fashion which many use are left with rough or ragged edges always, and often a slice is gouged out of the margin by the mis-directed knife. Never trust a book to a novice to be cut, without showing him how to do it, and how not to do it.

The collation of new books in cloth or broché should be done before cutting, provided they are issued to readers untrimmed. In collating books in two or more volumes double watchfulness is needed to guard against a missing signature, which may have its place filled by the same pages belonging to another volume-a mixture sometimes made in binderies, in "gathering" the sheets, and which makes it necessary to see that the signatures are right as well as the pages. The collator should check off all plates and maps called for by the table of contents to make sure that the copy is perfect. Books without pagination are of course to have their leaves counted, which is done first in detail, one by one, and then verified by a rapid counting in sections, in the manner used by printers and binders in counting paper by the quire.

The binding of books may be divided into two styles or methods, namely, machine-made book-bindings, and handmade bindings. Binding by machinery is wholly a modern art, and is applied to all or nearly all new books coming from the press. As these are, in more than nine cases out of ten, bound in cloth covers, and these covers, or cases, are cut out and stamped by machinery, such books are called "case-made." The distinction between this method of binding and the hand method is that in the former the case is made separately from the book, which is then put into it. After the sheets of any book come pressed and dried from the printing office, the first step is to fold them from the large flat sheets into book form. This is sometimes done by hand-folders of bone or some other hard material, but in large establishments for making books, it is done by a folding machine. This will fold ten thousand or more sheets in a day. The folded sheets are next placed in piles or rows, in their numerical sequence, and "gathered" by hand, i. e: a bindery hand picks up the sheets one by one, with great rapidity, until one whole book is gathered and collated, and the process is repeated so long as any sheets remain. Next, the books are thoroughly pressed or "smashed" as it is called, in a powerful smashing-machine, giving solidity to the book, which before pressing was loose and spongy. Then the books are sawed or grooved in the back by another machine, operating a swiftly moving saw, and sewed on cords by still another machine, at about half the cost of hand-sewing. Next, they are cut or trimmed on the three edges in a cutting-machine. The backs of the books are made round by a rounding-machine, leaving the back convex and the front concave in form, as seen in all finished books. The books are now ready for the covers. These consist of binders' board or mill-board, cut out of large sheets into proper

size, with lightning-like rapidity, by another machine called a rotary board-cutter. The cloth which is to form the back and sides of the book is cut out, of proper size for the boards, from great rolls of stamped or ribbed or embossed muslin, by another machine. The use of cloth, now so universal for book-binding, dates back little more than half a century. About 1825, Mr. Leighton, of London, introduced it as a substitute for the drab-colored paper then used on the sides, and for the printed titles on the backs. The boards are firmly glued to the cloth, the edges of which are turned over the boards, and fastened on the inside of the covers. The ornamental stamps or figures seen on the covers, both at the back and sides are stamped in with a heated die of brass, or other metal, worked by machinery. The lettering of the title is done in the same way, only that gold-leaf is applied before the die falls. Lastly, the book is pasted by its fly leaves or end-leaves, (sometimes with the addition of a cloth guard) to the inside of the cloth case or cover, and the book is done, after a final pressing. By these rapid machine methods a single book-manufacturing house can turn out ten thousand volumes in a day, with a rapidity which almost takes the breath away from the beholder.

There is a kind of binding which dispenses entirely with sewing the sheets of a book. The backs are soaked with a solution of india-rubber, and each sheet must be thoroughly agglutinated to the backs, so as to adhere firmly to its fellows. This requires that all the sheets shall be folded as single leaves or folios, otherwise the inner leaves of the sheets, having no sewing, would drop out. This method is employed on volumes of plates, music, or any books made up of large separate sheets.

In notable contrast to these rapid methods of binding

what are termed case-made books, comes the hand-made process, where only partial use of machinery is possible.

The rebinding process is divided into three branches: preparing, forwarding, and finishing. The most vital distinction between a machine-made and a hand-made binding, is that the cloth or case-made book is not fastened into its cover in a firm and permanent way, as in leather-backed books. It is simply pasted or glued to its boards—not interlaced by the cords or bands on which it is sewed. Hence one can easily tear off the whole cover of a cloth-bound book, by a slight effort, and such volumes tend to come to pieces early, under constant wear and tear of library service.

Let us now turn to the practical steps pursued in the treatment of books for library use. In re-binding a book, the first step is to take the book apart, or, as it is sometimes called, to take it to pieces. This is done by first stripping off its cover, if it has one. Cloth covers easily come off, as their boards are not tied to the cords on which the book is sewed, but are simply fastened by paste or glue to the boards by a muslin guard, or else the cloth is glued to the back of the book. If the book is leather-covered, or half-bound, i. e.: with a leather back and (usually) leather on its four corners, taking it to pieces is a somewhat slower process. The binder's knife is used to cut the leather at the joints or hinges of the volume, so that the boards may be removed. The cords that tie the boards to the volume are cut at the same time. If the book has a loose or flexible back, the whole cover comes easily off: if bound with a tight back, the glued leather back must be soaked with a sponge full of water, till it is soft enough to peel off, and let the sheets be easily separated.

The book is now stripped of its former binding, and the next step is to take it apart, signature by signature. A