Calico printing

“ The printing of Calicoes is done by the aid of a machine whose main feature is a revolving cylinder on which the design has been stamped or cut out. Such machines are capable of printing several colours in one design. Calico is woven with a plain one-over and one-under weave. As a textile term it is applied to cheaper grades of plain cotton cloth, and the name is rightly applied when such cloths are printed. In the Manchester district and in Great Britain generally the term Calico is used only to designate a plain grey or white shirting or sheeting free from any ornamentation. ”

“ No true mechanic can contrast the immense American ten-cylinder presses of The Times with the simple calico-printing machine, without feeling that the latter furnishes the true type to which the mechanism for newspaper printing should as much as possible approximate. ”

“ The process of calico printing by what is called the mule machine—that is, by means of a wooden cylinder in relief, with an engraved copper cylinder—was afterwards brought to perfection by one of his sons, the head of the firm of Messrs. Peel and Co., of Church. Stimulated by his success, Robert Peel shortly gave up farming, and removing to Brookside, a village about two miles from Blackburn, he devoted himself exclusively to the printing business. There, with the aid of his sons, who were as energetic as himself, he successfully carried on the trade for several years ”

“ Towards the end of the 18th century a revolution in the British manufacture of printed textiles was brought about through the invention of cylinder or roller printing from metal plates. This is usually credited to Oberkampf of Jouy, but it seems to have also occurred to a Scotsman named Bell, and was successfully applied in a large way about 1785 at Monsey near Preston. From this and the calico-printing works at Manchester in 1763, and in Scotland in 1768, the present huge proportions of the industry in the United Kingdom have grown. ”

“ The operations of embossing and colour printing are also sometimes effected together in a modification of the ordinary cylinder printing machine used in calico-printing, in which it is only necessary to introduce suitably engraved cylinders. For many purposes the embossing rollers must be maintained at a high temperature while in operation ”

“ This completes the printing of the pattern on one section of the bolt of cloth. The free end of the stencil is then raised, the cloth passed along the proper distance by hand and the stencil dropped in place for the next application. The paste is permitted to dry upon the cloth and when the bolt has been dipped into the blue dye the portions protected by the paste remain white. In this simple manner has the printing of calico been done for centuries for the garments of millions of children. ”

“ A careful workman could readily connect the different impressions of different blocks, keeping the colors in true register, and could pursue the pattern in a neat manner over any surface, however large. The work was tedious, but not more so than that of finishing, or gilding by hand tools, in ornamental bookbinding, which is now done by a similar method. Slow as it may seem when compared with the rapidity of modern p128 calico-printing, it was an improvement on all methods then known, and much quicker and more exact than any form of stenciling or hand-painting. ”

“ WOOD BLOCK PRINTING FOR STUDY OF PATTERN AND COLOR. The art of wood block printing has been practised for ages in Oriental countries. Our word “calico” is from the name of an Indian town, Calicut, whence printed patterns were brought to England. The older Indian designs, now very rare, had great beauty of line and color. These ancient cotton prints are used by the Japanese for outer coverings of pieces of precious pottery,—first a silk brocade bag, then one of Indian calico enveloping a wooden box in which is the bowl wrapped in plain cotton cloth. ”

“ Thickening materials are indispensable to the calico-printer. In order to prevent the colors on the cloth "running" into each other, and to obtain a distinct separation between the different shades, all the printing-colors have to be thickened. This is done by means of starch, gum, albumen, etc. The colorist has to be thoroughly familiar with the properties of all the substances he uses, and with their action toward each other. ”

“ I adopted the same practice in working the refined and complex machines used in printing coloured patterns on calico. A great variety of colours has to be transferred by a combination of rollers—each carrying its proper colour; these are printed on the calico with the utmost exactness, and result in the complete pattern. My system of having a separate engine to give motion to these colour-printing machines was found to be of great service, and its value was recognised by its speedy and almost universal adoption. ”

“ Two ounces of cochineal will print a long piece of calico with rich pink figures, having acetate of alumina for a mordant. As the ground is hardly tinged by the dye, it neither needs nor admits of much clearing.
I have already mentioned that goods are sometimes padded with solution of perchloride of tin before printing-on them the steam colours, whereby they acquire both permanence and vivacity. I have also stated that the salts of tin at a high temperature are apt to corrode the fibre of the stuff, and therefore must be used with discretion. ”

“ Every year, every day, has witnessed some new improvement in the manufacture of calico; the dull colors of former times have been superseded by a series of novel shades, and coarse patterns have given way before artistic designs which may well compare with the finest designs on paper. ”

“ Thus, taking a coarse cotton fabric, and acting upon it by the proper solution of caustic soda, this could be made much finer in appearance; and if the finest calico made in England—known as one hundred and eighty picks to the web—be thus acted on, it immediately appears as fine as two hundred and sixty picks. Stockings of open weaving assume a much finer texture by the condensation process; but the effect of the alteration is most strikingly [pg 281] shown by colors: the tint of pink cotton velvet becomes deepened to an intense degree ”

“ Since the downfall of the Empire, calico has come more and more into use, because it is so much cheaper than linen. At the present moment, paper is made of a mixture of hemp and linen rags, but the raw material is dear, and the expense naturally retards the great advance which the French press is bound to make. Now you cannot increase the output of linen rags, a given population gives a pretty constant result, and it only increases with the birth-rate. ”

“ The most obvious meaning appears to be that William Caxton was the first printer of this book in the Latin tongue; that he printed it at Cologne; and that his object in printing it was to advance or profit himself, in addition to his desire that every well-disposed man might look upon it. But there is another interpretation of these words, which is certainly not a forced one;—that William Caxton was the first printer of this book, the English book, and that the object of his printing it was to advance himself in the Latin tongue at Cologne. ”

“ In the first place, in 1471, the year in which it is believed that Caxton began to learn the art of printing in Cologne, the decoration of books was in its infancy, and few of the printers in that city had, up to that time, issued any books in which decorative blocks, other than perhaps an initial or two, were used. But what is of more importance, we know that Caxton’s chief object in, at a late period of his life, working in a Cologne [19] printing office, was to save himself the labour and weariness of copying by hand the various works which he translated for the pleasure of others. ”

“ There are no ushers and no Court functionaries, and little or no display. The servants who came with the message wore a red calico kaftan to the ground, with a red calico hood that looked like a domino. It is the Court livery, simple to make and cheap to buy. Calico is the national material, that everybody wears at all seasons of the year—in winter padded with cotton-wool or sheepskin. ”

“ Now this Robert Copland was spoken of a little later as the oldest printer in England, so that he may well have known a good deal about the beginning of Caxton’s career. We find a very similar case in Scotland. Printing was introduced there mainly for the purpose of printing the Aberdeen Breviary, but the first thing [Pg 8] the printers did was to issue a series of small poetical pieces by Dunbar, Chaucer, and others, an exactly similar kind of set to the small Caxton pieces in the Cambridge University Library. ”

“ They had to do everything for themselves; to construct the materials of their art, types, presses, and every other instrument and appliance. When Caxton began to print at Cologne, he probably had the means of obtaining a set of moulds from some previous printer,—what are called strikes from the punches that form the original matrices. The writers upon typography seem to assume the necessity of every one of the old printers cutting his punches anew, and shaping his letters according to his own notions of proportionate beauty. ”

“ It has been claimed that he learned to print there, and this claim receives some support from an ambiguous statement attributed to him many years later by Wynkyn de Worde. It is possible that Caxton may have worked a little in one of the Cologne printing offices, but it seems clear on internal evidence that Mr. Blades is right in his conclusion that Caxton did not learn the art there. The early printed work of Caxton is by no means equal to that of the Cologne printers, and represents an earlier stage of development than that which had been reached by Cologne at this period. ”

“ Caxton said of his first book, “It is not written with pen and ink as other books be, to the end that every man may have them at once; for all the books of this story, thus imprinted as ye here see, were begun in one day, and also finished in one day;” that is, the edition.
The Mentz printers, at the end of each of their first works, made it known that instead of being drawn or written with a pen, they were made by a new art and invention of printing or stamping them by characters or types of metal set in forms. ”

“ I went down-stairs to the back of the store.
"Where can I find red calico like this?" I asked.
"Next counter but one," said the man addressed, walking with me in the direction pointed out. "Dunn, show red calicoes."
Mr. Dunn took my sample and looked at it. "We haven't this shade in that quality of goods," he said.
"Well, have you it in any quality of goods?" I asked.
"Yes. We've got it finer." He took down a piece of calico, and unrolled a yard or two of it.
"That's not this shade," I said.
"No," said he. "The goods is finer and the color's better." ”

“ The glass-blower, the brazier, and the cutler, have not the remotest interest in calico. They may think, indeed, that part of the profit so secured may be indirectly advantageous in the purchase of their wares, but they find themselves lamentably mistaken. The astute calico-master sells his wares to the foreigner abroad, and he purchases with equal disinterestedness from the manufacturing foreigner at home. This is the whole tendency of free trade, and it is amazing to us that the juggle should find any supporters amongst the class who are its actual victims. ”

“ Mechanical difficulties prevent an exact duplication in every detail of the Caslon type in machine composition, yet the companies that are attempting it show a spirit that augurs well for the future quality of printing in America. ”

“ Amongst those men to whom belongs the honour of having introduced the art of printing into the various countries of Europe, none holds a more marked or a more important position than William Caxton. This is not the place to discuss the vexed questions, when, where, or by whom the art was really discovered; but the general opinion may be accepted, that in Germany, before the year 1450, Gutenberg had thought out the invention of movable type and the use of the printing-press, and that before the end of the year 1454 a dated piece of printing had been issued. ”

“ Another dive into the frock brought to view some four or five yards of calico print, whose tasteful pattern was rather disfigured by the yellow stains of the tobacco with which it had been brought in contact. In drawing this calico slowly from his bosom inch by inch, Toby reminded me of a juggler performing the feat of the endless ribbon. ”

“ Others were wiser than to oppose the new art, and many scribes, recognising the inevitable destruction of their trade, became printers. Caxton’s master, Colard Mansion, was an extensive writer of manuscripts before he took to the business of printing at Bruges. Much has been written upon famous collections of manuscripts, and upon the individual works which compose them, but it is not often that these come to public auction, so that the particulars of prices are comparatively meagre. ”

“ Nothing, indeed, is more characteristic of the early printers than the stress they laid upon accuracy. From another colophon we learn that an edition of Sallust at that early period consisted of five hundred copies. In another the same printer declares that he will deign to sell nothing that is not perfectly correct. In another he talks of having carefully expurgated his author, as if he had been printing Juvenal or Martial, but as the author is a divine the remark can only refer to the correctness of the text. ”

“ Westminster, 1482. Caxton Type 4*.
Such is a brief summary of the types of our first printer. It would be interesting, were it possible, to continue in an equally detailed manner an examination of the types of all the early English printers. But the rapid increase of printing which followed Caxton’s death would render such a task one of great labour and difficulty. We shall content ourselves with collecting such references to typefounding as may throw general light on the progress of the art during the first century of its existence. ”