HUMAN SKIN FOR BOOKBINDING.

Evening Star, Issue 22631, 24 April 1937, Page 9

HUMAN SKIN FOR BOOKBINDING.

TO THIS EDITOR. Sic,—An interesting article on the above subject appeared in your columns on the 21st. It mentioned the fact ! that at the recent leather exhibition at Charing Cross there was shown a ' piece of leather, three inches by three, 1 marked “ human skin.” We can do 1 better than that in Dunedin. I have 1 a of Keble’s _ ‘ Christian Year,’ ] bound in human skin, covering about 1 six inches By four inches. Thereby ] hangs a tale. The New Zealand and , South Seas Exhibition of 1889-1890 was close at hand, and the firm I was then \ ■with, Messrs Fergusson and Mitchell, ' printers, lithographers, bookbinders, i etc., decided to exhibit thereat. The i preparation of a suitable and exten- e sive exhibit was left in my hands. Be- + mg anxious to find something that i would be out of the way and so com- - mand attention, and having read that „ “ u , ri ?£ French Revolution the re- v volutionanes made saddles from the }• skins of some of their enemies—the s aristocrats—rthe idea struck me that t human skin, as a binding for a hook would be a decided d novelty, albeit a little grim and a gruesome. The job was to get the vi human I appealed to a friend v

of mine, a. doctor . (now dead), . and few days lie supplied the thing that was needed. To get it tanned was a difficulty. None of the meu in the tannery of Messrs Bayley and Sons Ltd. would undertake the work of tanning it, but one of the principals, having become_ interested in the idea, did the work himself, and made a good job of it, producing a fine piece of light brown leather. There are only two skins in the world in which the hair-pits cannot be in the process of tanning; these are hog skin and human skin. I succeeded, but not without difficulty, in getting one of our binders to undertake the task.- He was a skilled craftsman, and the book selected, Tolstoi’s ‘ Life,’ was duly completed, and became a notable exhibit in the firm’s showcase at the exhibition. Where it is now Ido not know, but as a considerable part of the skin remained over, 1 had a copy of the book above-mentioned bound in it as a kind of memento. Looking at the volume to-day, I find that time has matured the leather, and it is now of a deep, warm shade!of brown—really beautiful.—l am etc., April 23. J. I. W.