HOW A BIBLE IS MADE.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVIII, Issue 2848, 17 June 1896, Page 4

HOW A BIBLE IS MADE.

FROM PAPER MILL TO PUBLISHING HOUSE. An American lady who was visiting the Clarendon Press at Oxford was (so the story runs) much impressed by the beauty of the lawn, and she plied the gardener with many a question. The good man, who seems to have been gifted with some sense of humour, gravely gave her full directions how to lay out a lawn. “And then ? " asked the lady eagerly, noting that the gardener hesitated. “ Then, mann, you have to wait four hundred years !" The development of the Oxford University has gone on for more than four centuries. The debt which the Oxford Press owes to the Sible is incalculable, for without the profits arising from the sale of the Scriptures many of the Learned Press publications (Dr Murray’s New English Dictionary, for example) could hardly have been undertaken. The Press has repaid that debt to the utmost possible extent by issuing the Scriptures in forms that have gained for the Oxford Bible a worldwide reputation. The Press is heterogeneous, and almost entirely self-con-tained. With one exception, everything necessary to the turning out of a firstclass Oxford Bible is done on the premises, either at the ’Varsity town or in London. THE OXFORD PAPER-MILE.

The paper mill at Wolvercote is some two miles from Oxford, and is a picturesque object, especially familiar to boating men. Mr Joseph Castle, who manages this department of the Oxford Press, showed a representative of the Daily News the whole process of papermaking—the rag-sorting, boiling, bleaching ; the beating of the pulp into fine fibres (rag and others); the glazing of the paper between zinc plates in hand presses, or by the inferior means of calendering by other power, part of which, by-the-by, is obtained by the use of water gas. To a stranger, the rag-sorting is somewhat overpowering, but a question as to the possible uiihealthinoss of the occupation was politely laughed to scorn so far as Wolvercote was concerned, and certainlythe very appearance of the veteran forewoman rendered the query almost superfluous. The famous Oxford India paper is manufactured here ; the secret of the manufacture is only known to three living persons, and many have been the unsuccessful attempts to imitate. THE TYPE AND THE INK.

Mr Hart, the Controller, acted as our representative’s guide over the University Press, a veiy handsome and huge quadrangular building, more like a college than a printing office, enclosing the garden to which reference has been made. At first the University printing was carried on in hired premises, then in the church of St. Maty the Virgin, next in the Sheldoman Theatre, then in the Clarendon Press hard by (so called because the cost of its construction was defrayed by the profits from the “ History of the Great Rebellion "), and lastly for nearly seventy years past in the present building. The Bible Press is on the south side. Here the first thing which Mr Hart showed was the type foundry, which, it may be remarked, is the oldest in England. The frequent use of arbitrary signs and curious characters in the Clarendon Press hooks involves a groat deal of hand casting. The antimony and tin are bought jn the state required, but the lead is prepared on the premises for the foundry. Near at hand the ink is mixed and carefully tested, so that the exact degree of consistency may bo obtained, which ensures a proper blackness and prevents the smallest letter from being clogged, and obviates sticking or smudging. TIIR COMPOSITION : A GUINEA A MISPUINT. Setting up the Oxford Bible is the next stage. Plutarch’s dictum, “As small letters hurt the sight, so do small matters him that is too much intent upon them,” scarcely applies to the Press compositors, for their sight (to the great astonishment of a well-known oculist who made investigations) seems little affected, notwithstanding the setting up of Brilliant Bibles, Finger and Thumb Prayer Books, and other curiosities of small type. The thousands who use reference Bibles little think of the trouble involved in their production. The position of every syllable on every page has to be planned before the reprint is given out, (or the various pages and the columns thereof have to begin with the same word no matter what type is used. When, say, a minion Bible has been set up, it is read in the ordinary way, then witha nonpareil edition, then with a brevier edition, and even when the plates are cast the book is read over again. Thus it is not uncommon for an Oxford Bible to be read a dozen times before it is sent up to London to be bound. Any employee who detects a printer’s error is rewarded, and the first outsider who is equally lynx-eyed gets a guinea. But to spend one’s time in looking out for errors in the Oxford Bibles cannot be recommended as likely to prove lucrative, for the yearly average of mistakes which are detected is only five. On the first floor of the Bible Press is the electrotype and stereotype department, and in this connection it is worth recalling that the Delegates of the f ress in 1805 purchased from the inventor, Mr Andrew Wilson, for the aura of £4OOO, the right to adopt the then secret process of stereotyping.

THE PRINTING : MR GLADSTONE'S QUESTION.

' Next comes the printing of the sheets, which is done in an immense and admirably contrived room containing some fifty machines, old fashioned and new. Mr Gladstone was greatly interested in this room when he was shown over the Press on the occasion of his visiting Oxford in the autumn of 1892 to deliver the Romanes Lecture on the history of the Universities. His eagle eye soon detected the Oxford India paper. “ Ah. is that it?" the right hon. gentleman bluntly asked the foreman, “ What do you make it of?" The foreman was so aghast that ho could only mutter “ Ha asked me what we make it of! " Air Gladstone did not.forget this incident in the rush of subsequent politics, and not long afterwards found time to send a specimen of Japanese paper to Mr Hart. THE DRYING AND PACKING. The places or standing typo looked in formes, the wood blocks, <fec., are, after being taken from the machines, all kept in an enormous and most methodically planned strong room. Here are the plates of all the Bibles, ranging from the Brilliant to the Folio (pp. 19 by 12 inches), the latter being the only Folio Bible now in existence, and also unique inasmuch as no printer’s error has as yet been found in it. A very moderate estimate of the number af pages preserved in this room, in electro, stereo, and standing typs, is a million, and the contents of the room are worth not iar short of £IOO,OOO. The printed sheets are taken to a kind of Turkish bath—a hot room in which dry air is driven round iu a confined space by means of a large circular steam fan. If time be no object, the sheets are hung on "trebles" (the towel-horse is the domestic equivalent) in an ordinary room. In either case when they have been duly dried the sheets are stacked. From four to seven tons of printed sheets, packed in great hales, are sent up to town by railway daily, according to the demand for the books, and as many as ninety tons of such sheets have been sent to the Bindery in the course of a single month. THE BIBLE MUSEUM. Not the least interesting part of the building, which Mr Hart reserved for last, was the ‘ ‘ museum," containing copies of the “ Vinegar," the “ Breeches," and other quaint editions of the Bible, a copy of the first Oxford Bible (published as late as 1675, for Oxford did not at first fully appreciate its Bible printing privileges, and prior to that date farmed them), a copy of the Standard Book of Common Prayer, and other things which must be included in et cetera. Mr Hart is an enthusiast, and he may well be. The Delegatee are to be congratulated on having had his services for the last thirteen years, and Mr Hart himself is to be felicitated on the admirable working order obtaining in every department of the huge organisation under his control. THE BINDING'OP THE BIBLES. The Oxford Bindery is a large building off Alderagate street. Mr Henry Ffowde is supreme in London, but the departmental manager is Mr R. Upton Jones, who acquainted our representative with all that remained to be done before the Oxford Bible, as the public knows it, would be an accomplished fact. Here the sheets, which have been delivered in the huge bales, are folded by hand, imperfect impressions being rejected. Only the cheaper books are sewn by machinery —prettier machines than those in use conld scarcely be conceived—the better volumes being sewn with silk by hand. Then the edges are guillotined, andtheair pressed from between the pages ; and the books having been gilt-edged elsewhere—for in London gilt-edging is a separate trade—everything is ready for binding. The best work in this, as in other departments, is all done by hand, and the methods followed, except in certain

hibour-savingdirections, have changed but little since bindings were first thought of. Here may be seen the covers in various stages being finished and stair pod with gold, and it is worth noting that the very best exteriors are finished after the books have been bound. In the way of Bibles nothing better is turned out in any quantities than the Oxford Bible for Teachers on India paper, with limp morocco covers and flaps (known to the trade as “Yapps"), and lined with calf ; but, in proportion, just as much care is lavished on the tiny volumes which weigh only a few ounces and constitute a speciality of the Oxford University Press. During the Caxton Celebration, memorial Bibles, 1052 pp., wore printed at Oxford, sent to London, bound, and delivered at South Kensington, all within twelve hours; but in ordinary circumstances Mr Jones advises the work being spread over a fortnight. Some idea of the extent of the binding business may be gathered from the fact that the skins of upwards of 10,000 animals are used yearly to cover Oxford Bibles, and that some 400,000 sheets of gold loaf are required to letter the backs of the volumes. THE OUTPUT OF MULES 1 A MILLION A YEAR. The bound Bibles are next taken to the substantial warehouse at Ameu comer, and stored in the most methodical manner imaginable until required. Probably the name of no living man appears on so many volumes as that of Mr Henry Frowde, who has been publisher to the University since 1874. In the course of some conversations with Mr Frowde. our representative discovered that the output of the Oxford Bibles averages 20,000 per week, or upwards of a million a year. The stream is fairly steady, for while the flow throughout Great Britain is rather more considerable towards the end of the year than at any other period, the tide in the United States and the colonies is at flood during the earlier months. The Oxford Bibles go wherever the English language is spoken. Taking the sales in England and Wales in proportion to the population as the standard, Mr Frowde estimated the distribution as fellows: England and Wales, 10 ; Scotland, I'D; Ireland, o'3 ; Canada, 0’75 ; Australasia, O.G; Cape Colony, 0 0; and the United Stales , 0'35. Although the figure for the United States looks small, the bulk of the Bibles exported thereto is considerable, and the weekly shipment often exceeds five tons in weight. There are 71 Oxford editions of the Bible now being circulated. Since the light India paper was introduced, lighter and softer bindings have come into favour, while the heavy bevelled covers, mounted with metal corners, and having massive clasps, with which every one used to bo familiar, have disappeared. It was interesting, also, to learn, from such an authority as Mr Frowde must needs be, that tho sales of the Revised Version have been slowly gaining ground during the past few years, but that they do not reach a tenth of those of the Authorised Version of 1011.

The Oxford University Press, from paper mill to publishing warehouse, finds regular employment for upwards of a thousand people. All concerned in the production of the Bible, from first to Inst, from lowest to highest, seem to take a pride in their work, and their esprit da corps is impressive. People talk of the irreligion of these diys, yet the Bible is selling better than ever. There can bo no doubt that the Oxford Bible is at ouca a cause and an effect of tho increasing interest felt in the “ God of Books," as a distinguished divine once called tho volume.