Kopje

“ After having made the measure for the work, we set a line for the letter that is designed for it, and take notice how much copy will come into the line in the stick, whether less or more than a line of manuscript. And as it is seldom that neither one nor the other happens, we make a mark in the copy where the line in the stick ends, and number the words that it contains. ”

“ An impression of the object to be copied is taken with a prepared ink on a sort of silver paper, which is then rolled on a revolving cylinder, and the message, whether in writing or in the form of a drawing, is at once forwarded to its destination, a perfect fac-simile of the writing or drawing being produced at the other end of the wire. ”

“ How to Make a Copygraph Pad. —A copygraph pad, or hectograph, as it is often called—from the Greek hekaton which means 100, and graph to write, hence to write a hundred—is a gelatine pad for duplicating a letter or a drawing.
To use a copygraph pad you must write your original letter with an aniline ink; then you lay it on the pad and rub it down with your fingers. When you remove the sheet an impression will be left on the face of the pad and if now you lay a sheet of clean paper on the pad, rub it and pull it off you will have a copy almost as bright and clear as the original. ”

“ The art of printing, in all its numerous departments, is essentially an art of copying. Under its two great divisions, printing from hollow lines, as in copperplate, and printing from surface, as in block printing, are comprised numerous arts.
84. Copperplate printing. In this instance, the copies are made by transferring to paper, by means of pressure, a thick ink, from the hollows and lines cut in the copper. An artist will sometimes exhaust the labour of one or two years upon engraving a plate, which will not, in some cases furnish above five hundred copies in a state of perfection. ”

“ When once fairly on the way with a novel [Pg 28] he worked with rapidity. He wrote with a large pen, with very black ink, on large sheets of drab-coloured paper. Each sheet was numbered as written, and thrown on the floor, which, after a few hours’ writing, was completely covered. A maid servant gathered up the manuscript, which, after being put in order, was sent to a copyist, who made, in a round hand, a clear copy. Mr. Reade then went carefully over it, making improvements by omissions and additions. The revised sheets were once more copied for the printer. ”

“ At last, however, the copy goes to press, the proof is promptly returned and corrected (we are content with a single revise) , and the three or four bulky volumes of manuscript are condensed into a single handy and portable volume of type, printed in double columns and on ordinary paper for subscribers, but for reading-room use in single column on a strong vellum paper, adapted to bear rough handling, the opposite column being left blank for insertions, and the book supplied with guards to allow of interleaving. ”

“ Other copying or manifolding machines for manuscript are the Cyclostyle, Mimeograph, and Trypograph. The two former are [37] perhaps most useful in libraries; the Mimeograph being best for manifolding along with the typewriter. The ordinary screw letter copying press is a necessary adjunct of every librarian’s office, but in libraries with small incomes an “Anchor” copying press, costing about 12s. 6d., will be found to serve all ordinary purposes.
FILES, BOXES, BOOK-HOLDERS, STAMPS, &c. ”

“ The facts are written in their proper spaces when first ascertained, and when the work of research is finished it will be found that the work of compilation has taken care of itself! In fact, the notebook is self-compiling. The blank spaces are arranged in the order of the statements as they are to appear on the printed page, the connecting words and proper punctuation being printed in the notebook. Having filled in all the spaces which our data requires, we simply draw a pen through the rest, and our book is practically compiled, for its own leaves may be sent to the printer as manuscript! ”

“ No rational mind can imagine that the faulty copy drawn in chalk on a Blackboard can or will be accepted as an adequate substitute for the carefully engraved copy in the Headline Book. Scores, yea hundreds of these Blackboard copies, written by every rank of teacher, have come under our observation, and we have no hesitation in saying that in the large proportion of them no Inspector would pass them as fair. One or two in every score might possibly approach to the regularity and accuracy required in a writing Copy, but this proportion is more fanciful than real. ”

“ The question as to what position of the Copy Book is hygienically the best and least dangerous to the spinal column and eye of the writing child has for many years been occupying the minds of teachers.
We have at the outset to distinguish between a middle position and a right position of the Copy Book according as the latter, in the writing, lies exactly in front of the middle of the body, or to the right of it.
Left positions do not concern us in right-handed penmanship. ”

“ If I could only lay hold of a copy of the picture I might ask leave to go and compare it with the original. So down I went to Esher to find out if there was a copy in existence, and was at Broom Hall for one hour and a half yesterday afternoon. There was no copy there, but they must exist, for Sir Bernard himself (there's 'copy' there!) has allowed a couple to be made since the picture has been in his possession. ”

“ The back of the book is cut if it is in very bad condition, and then instead of sewing through punctures over cords or tapes, several of the leaves are taken and placed in the same position as a section, and sewed through, whipping over and over, and going around tapes or cords in the usual manner. It frequently happens however, that a book is in good condition with the exception of the cover, in which case, simply a new cover is put on. ”

“ And as we did to the first line in the stick, so we do to the other, marking on the manuscript the end of each line in the stick, and telling the letters in each, to see how they balance against each other. This being carefully done, we begin counting off, each time, as many lines of copy as we know will make even lines in the stick: For example, if two lines of copy make three lines in print, then four make six, six make nine, eight make twelve, and so on, calling every two lines of copy three lines in print. ”

“ A Writing or Drawing is made on Stone, with an Ink prepared with a sort of unctuous ingredient—to this is applied another Ink of a contrary quality; the Ink with which the Writing or Drawing is made, remains on the Stone, while that with which the Printing is performed, separates from it, and is thus transferred to the Paper. This method has been brought to very great perfection; so much so, as to produce Prints from Drawings possessing nearly all the beauty and delicacy of Copperplate or Steel Engravings. ”

“ That manuscript had a curious history and certainly deserves a place in a Museum. I heard lately that Gabriel Wells, [Pg 75] the American collector, has got hold of it. J. C. had made alterations in black ink, the magazine editor had gashed it horribly in red; and when the book publisher came to restore the mangled corpus he could do so, intelligibly for the printer, only by an extravagant use of green ink. You see, there was no duplicate copy of the original. Always make duplicates. If you don’t, and if you are a writer of J. C.’s size, your manuscripts may some day be priceless. ”

“ To Copy Letters without a Press.—A black copying ink, which flows easily from the pen, and will enable any one to obtain very sharp copies without the aid of a press, can be prepared in the following manner: One ounce of coarsely broken extract of logwood and two drachms of crystallized carbonate of soda are placed in a porcelain capsule with eight ounces of distilled water, and heated until the solution is of a deep red color, and all the extract is dissolved. ”

“ Writing and most printing papers, which may or may not be printed in more than one colour, are frequently cut two ways of the webs, that is, a 30 by 40 inch paper, if cut from a web of 70 inches net width, is cut without waste by cutting sheets 30 inches wide from one part and 40-inch sheets from the remainder of the reel. All papers on which register work is to be printed must be cut with the same machine direction. ”

“ CAXTON MEMORIAL WINDOW IN ST. MARGARET’S, WESTMINSTER.
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ink is perfectly black to this day; the lines are even and in perfect order; the binding, when an ancient binding has been preserved, is like any binding of later times. But the shape of the book was not newly invented, nor the binding, nor the form of the type; in these matters the printer followed the copyist. In the earlier examples the illuminator was called in to adorn the book, copy by copy, with his art-initials, colored letters, pictures delicately and beautifully drawn, colored and gilt in the printed page. ”

“ In large and quiet rooms in the home office a force of copy-readers is preparing the correspondence from all over the world for the compositors; at the news desks trained men are working day and night over telegrams flashed from far and near, eliminating useless words, punctuating, putting on "heads," and otherwise dressing copy for the typesetters. ”

“ Copying ink is not necessary even where press letter-copying is employed, as ordinary blue-black ink, if not blotted but allowed to dry naturally, will make perfectly good press copies. Care should be taken not to dry the tissue-paper leaves of the letter book completely when making copies. ”

“ The medium exhibits a persistent aversion to the use of recording apparatus: she dislikes smoked paper (for taking impressions of finger prints, etc.) ; at one'séance it is recorded that she fought hard—and even bit—to prevent the use of a photographic plate. [11] Even more significant is her treatment of two tests recently devised by a circle of Italian medical men. At the first sitting a clockwork cylinder, covered with blackened paper, was placed inside a bell-glass, secured from interference by sealed tapes. The object of the test was to obtain a vertical mark on the cylinder ”

“ In machine-made papers it is the upper side of the paper as it is made, but in hand-mades the right side is the under side which receives the watermark. The watermark is in reverse upon the mould or the dandy roll, and is fixed on the impressionable pulp by slight compression or displacement of the fibres. In papers without water-marks it may be taken that the smoother side is the right side. The wrong side of machine-made papers bears the impress of the woven wire upon which they were made. ”

“ But you must obtain a copy of the letter; it’s but a fair exchange for the French code, you know; and you’re permitted—nay you’re authorized, in the interest of the service—to allow Carpenter to copy the book if he will give you the letter to copy. Furthermore, you may proceed leisurely in the process; there is no particular haste; while they are occupied with the letter matter, there is apt to be less activity along other lines. Only get a copy of the letter; I have the key-word.”
“You have the key-word!” Marston exclaimed. ”

“ This is a curious block-book of twenty-four pages, of the original edition of which not one perfect copy is known. The leaves of the copy now on the shelves of the British Museum are 33⁄4 inches wide and 6 inches high. Sotheby, who has carefully examined its construction, says that the twenty-four pages were printed in sections of eight pages on three sheets of paper, with a thin watery ink of a sepia tint. The margins and blanks have been written on with an ink of nearly the same color as that of the printed cuts. ”

“ Such maps are often placed in a small light case of cardboard covered with cloth, or a light cover is made, into which the map is so pasted at the back board that it lies ready for use when opened.
Paintings, drawings in colour, or wash drawings cause exceptional difficulties, as the moisture of the pasting medium tends to dissolve or make the colours run. In such cases smaller sheets are placed between sheets of damp blotting paper, and it is stuck upon the pasted underside. When the object permits it, it is glued on without previous damping. ”

“ Compositors are apt to grasp at a large portion of copy, with the view of advantage in the making up, though nine times in ten it will, as before observed, operate as a loss to them, by their eventually standing still for want of letter. If by mistake too much copy has been taken, the compositor should hand a part of it to the person next in the making up, to set up to himself. ”

“ In the absence of a press a copy may be taken, when the ink is good and the writing very recent, by rolling the sheets, duly arranged on a ruler, over the surface of a flat, smooth table, employing as much force as possible, and avoiding any slipping or crumbling of the paper. ”

“ In a folio book one of every pair of leaves should have a watermark in the middle of the paper. In a quarto some pairs of leaves will have no watermark; in others it will be found divided by the fold of the paper. As the great majority of books without printed signatures are in folio or quarto, the sequence of watermarked and un-watermarked leaves, if carefully worked out, will mostly reveal the “make-up” of the successive gatherings. ”

“ Up to this date, then, even when the book has a title-page, the printer or publisher can only be ascertained from the colophon, and before 1490 you must generally go to the colophon even for the description of the book. The reason is, no doubt, the extent to which the printer was influenced by the example of his predecessor, the copyist. It was more natural for the scribe to record the completion of his labours at the end of his manuscript than to announce their commencement on the first leaf. ”