Books Before Printing.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7287, 15 August 1893, Page 3

Books Before Printing.

Bearing in mind the present abundance of printing books, it is almost impossible to realise the fact that previous to four and a half centuries ago every record was a written one, and that no two books were exact facsimiles of one another. It is still more difficult to realise that all tbe great works of antiquity, tbe Bible the works of Homer, Virgil, and all the other ancient classics, have come down to us through the ages in tbe exceedingly perishable and precarious form of manuscripts. Wars abroad and strife at home have on many occasions destroyed much for which posterity would gladly pay a high price, but there can be no doubt that the more important monuments of antiquity have been preserved from the fury of vandals and iconoclasts. The earliest efforts of the human race to record its thoughts and history were by reatebing with some hard instrument on stone* This was done by a small pointed metal rod or stylus, of which the present writer possesses a small collection, some of which are probably 2000 or 3000 years old, and which are sufficiently durable to last for another 50,000 years All kinds of articles have been used as the vehicle for these inscriptions, such as bones in prehistoric times, various metals, particularly lead, clay when soft and then baked, potsherds, tablets of wood or bark of trees, according to the age or country where the one or the other hap* pened to be the more convenient. The forms of the “ books ” manufactured in this way, or by either of the foregoing means, will at once suggest themselves. As tbe world grew older tbe papyrus became the universal medium of intercommunication and records, although, curiously enough,' it was quite the least endurable. It was almost invariably in a rollform, with a stick at either end, and precisely similar to tbe wall-map of the nresent day. In course of time tbe office of scribe became a distinct and important profession. In Rome at the time of Martial, books were as cheap as they are to day. Martial himself tells uj that tbe first book of his epigrams was to be bought, neatly bound, for an amount which is to-day represented by about Bs, whilst the same book in a cheaper binding for the common people was offered at from Is to ls6ij bis thirteenth book of epigrams was sold for about Bd, and half that price, be says, would have left a fair profit. So far as regards rapidity, the same poet tells us that it would only require one hour to copy the whole of the second book—" Hsec una peragit librarius bora " —and this may be regarded as a very early example of “ Printing while you wait."