S. I. MAR. 19, '98.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
A BOOKBINDING QUESTION (8 th S. xii. 207
292, 353, 452 ; 9 th S. i. 73, 151). I have reac
with interest the communications at the last
reference ; but I am " of the same opinion
still," though not by any means " convincec
against my will," that a book lettered along
the back upwards is lettered " upside down.'
One of your correspondents admits that hij
binder can give no other reason for so letter-
ing books than that "a binder invariably
does so, unless ordered by his customer to
the contrary." He also says that "the greater
number of books lettered vertically are
periodicals, and board -bound trifles, like
shilling shockers." That is certainly not my
experience. The books I complain of as
being lettered upside down are principally
books to be seen on every drawing-room,
library, and smoking-room table, and these
tables are to be found " covered with books
lettered upside down." As regards such
books put upon the shelves of a library, it
is surely nonsense to say that " an observer
inclines his head naturally to the left, not to
the right." He must be one of the stiff-
necked people we read so much of in the
Bible, if he cannot incline his head as easily
to the right as to the left. Let_ any one try
the experiment of standing straight opposite
two books placed perpendicularly on a shelf,
one lettered downwards and the other up-
wards, and he will find he can read the letter-
ing of the one as easily as that of the other,
and virtually without inclining his head
either to the right or to the left.
We in Scotland have to stand a great deal of good-natured chaff about Sydney Smith's time - honoured (time - worn ?) saying that "it requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotchman's understanding." Your correspondent with the perverted form of the good Scotch name Robertson (clan Donnachaidh) is one of many Englishmen who seem to require the operation more than most Scotchmen. The idea of taking my innocent little joke about ME. RALPH THOMAS'S apostolic name as inferring any " sneer " at that gentleman, whom I highly respect, is really much too solemn a way of looking at things, even for the sternest Calvinist. If ME. THOMAS was to take offence at this he would be about as thin-skinned as some of my fellow-countrymen who are at present making a great hullabaloo about the word English being used, where they main- tain "British" is the correct word. ME. THOMAS very kindly sent me a copy of his little pamphlet * On the Use of the Word British,' and I judge by it that he has but little sympathy with hyper-sensitive people.
I think the result of the whole discussion
in your columns goes to confirm the view
that books lettered along the back should be
lettered downwards, so that when laid upon
a table face upwards, as they so frequently
are, the title can be easily read. There is a
right and a wrong way, and this is un-
doubtedly the right way. ^ No argument
whatever has been adduced in favour of the
" upside down " method, except that having
hitherto been wrongly done, it should on that
account continue to be wrongly done. As
Richard Bentley truly says, when we have
always seen a thing done in one way, "we
are apt to imagine there was but that one
way." J. B. FLEMING.
Kelvinside, Glasgow.
"Ecce quantus ignis." As I set the match to this leafy bonfire, I am interested in the smoke and blaze it is causing, though I regret the too heavily charged squibs that have been exploded over it. The question of how we most easily, and therefore usually, cross a letter or a cheque is surely distinct. In those cases the writing hand is at the bottom of the paper, and in the former the hand is nearer to the bottom left-hand corner than to the top right-hand corner. ^ In both cases the right arm can be easily turned forward contra-clockwise, but not backward clock- wise. Hence the custom. I think I have discovered a possible origin of the bad habit of lettering narrow backs upwards instead of downwards. If a reader holds, as he usually does, his narrow-backed book in his left hana, keeping the right hand free for pencil, paper- knife, or cigarette, then, should he want to look at the title on the back, it seems to me slightly easier to do so if the back be lettered in the ordinary way. T. WILSON.
Since our pagan English ancestors of the sixth and seventh centuries were taught to read and write not only by Christian Roman priests, but also by Christian Irish mis- sionaries, may not the latter masters have mparted to their pupils the habit of lettering the backs of books upwards instead of down- wards ? To letter a thin, erect thing upwards was natural to the Irishman of the centuries mentioned ; it must, even then, have been a labit fixed by the earlier practice of inscribing oghams upwards on a stave or standing stone. The same masters taught the same pupils to write on the broad, flat pages of Docks from left to right. We still do so, thus ontinuing a habit traceable back to its >rigin of over a thousand years ago. Why should not the upward way be a habit of similar birth 1
