CLARENDON'S LEGACY TO OXFORD.

Otago Witness, Issue 2804, 11 December 1907, Page 80

CLARENDON'S LEGACY TO OXFORD.

THE MARVELLOUS WORK OF THE UNIVERSITY PRKSS.

No one who takes an interest in the making of books can fail to be attracted by the stoiy of the Clarendon Press ns it is told in "the Octobei i=sue of the Pall Mall Magazine. To be precise, one ought to say, perhaps, the Clarendon Pic-s of Oxford' and the Oxford University Press of London, for so closely are the two dovetailed together that, as the writer says, "it is difficult to determine where the one Press begins and the other ends. It is one of iliofe undpmoiibtrahle things that the faithful must be content to accept as mvfcterk'6."

—A B.ibrl of Type.— Tlie product ion par excellence by which the Oxford ii J r<>>s must stand or fall is, of course, its pnntinir of tlio Bible. Hence v.-c aie not suipiistd to learn that — It i^bii'-s 71 editions, ranging from the tiny edition in the type called "biillumt'" to a resplendent folio like >vi alUr-shtlj. America takes over six tons of lh?se different Bibles every w^ek, and! the totals issued in the year mount up to mil'ions. And yet the variety of editions is nothing to the variety of the 400 laiii:u.igps ard dialects in which the sacred text is punted. . . Think of the difticultii 6 of typing alone. A hundred characters- are sulncient foi our foiiiinoi' KoiiKin typography, but some of those exotic tongues either inn into a diifcient cliaiacter for e\erv word, or el*'j require e.'<h lettpr to be built up out of 10 or .i do/en pieces. A hundred compoMtois have e<idi a smatteiin^ of a

dozen languages, and a touch-anoVgo ae* quaintance with a hundred more; but for the most part they reck not their own rede, and set blindly, hoping fto the best. As for the result, it baffles ~3e*r script ion, for it ranges from a hiero* glyphic that looks like the patterns spua on an old-fashioned sampler to the for- • mfdable Sclavonian, that is like nothing so much as a cyclist's set of spanners lying among the fragments of a broken, monkey-wrench. But typing is not the greatest task by any means, and it costs far less to 6et up the Bible than it does to "read" it. How is the marvellous accuracy of the famous Oxford texts attained? — At Oxford every edition is "read" five times, letter by letter, and though in a' spirit of modesty and gratitude the Press pays anyone a.guinea for each error first detected, the total paid yearly for all the Bibles issued never exceeds' fivo guineas. Some years ago, it is said, two ' letters fell out of a page, and the -text thus represented' the Redeemer as "aching" in the Temple, instead of "teaching" ; and on its discovery, the missing letters were printed by hand ; into the 50,000 copies of that particular edition. — Lordly Bindings.— The London office of the Oxford Press consists of four great buildings, distributed about the city. Most of the- sheets are printed at Oxford and brought to Londoii to be bound. When you have, gone the round of tlwr various rooms, at the bindery, and. have seen a pile of sheets run through 1000 hands until they become a thing of beauty, fit for a prince's- library, you - come to the conclusion. J,hat ts& .Oxford) Press bindery is equal to anything. Here they use 400,000 sheets of, gold, leaf e-venr, year and the^sklrfsr of HX>,ooo* animals. In bne room they show -you a penny, Testament which jias sold by many million's ; in another Mr Pierpont Morgan's private catalogue of his miniatures is being bound — 80 copies in two lordly tl volumes each, and decorated in a. style which puts them outside considerations of price. In another room you^Bee;, af,. store-house of leather for which, the bazaars and markets of five continents have been ransacked. . Somehow ypm come to realise that if you were so minded you could get* books bound in the pelt of every animal tbat urent into the Ark, except the walrus and the car* : penter and jelly-fish. Many other interestiiig things, too, wo learn about the working of the 1 famous Prose ; amongst others, that besides books,, it prints a million and a-quarter examination papers every year, that it collects its own lead for its type, and that it employs chiffoniers to canvass three counties in pursuit of tea-lead, which, cays the writer, not only has the advantage of purity, but ships itself free of cost.