vered at the other in the state of perfect paper. By this process twenty-five square feet can be made in one minute; or 15,000 square feet in a working day of ten hours.
The vexatious excise duty on paper was removed in 1862, when the Exchequer lost 1,000,000l. on that year by the change.[1] The average value of paper manufactured in Great Britain may be set down at 4,000,000l.
The subject of watermarks in paper is an inquiry alike useful and curious, since it assists in elucidating the history of paper-making, and the mark of the manufacturer has often been found of use in detecting literary forgeries, and frauds in the falsification of accounts. To pursue the inquiry here would far exceed our limit; but the reader will find an able contribution of specimens, by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, “Archæologia,” xxxvii.
One of the oldest water-marks in existence is an open hand, whose middle finger is connected by a straight line or stem with a star. This appears on a sheet of paper of the manufacture of Flanders, which at that time supplied all the paper needed for the correspondence of England. Upon a sheet of paper is written a letter, preserved in one of the Museums at Venice, which was addressed to Francesco Capello, by King Henry VII., from “our manor of Woodstock,” on the 20th of July, 1502. Mr. Herring, however, states its introduction at 1530, adding that it gave the name to “Hand” paper. Note paper once bore a tankard, but it has now the royal arms in a shield, without motto or supporters. Post is marked with a postman’s horn, in a shield with a crown. Copy has a fleur-de-lys only. Demy, and several larger sorts, a fleur-de-lys in a crowned shield. Royal, a shield with a bend sinister, and a fleur-de-lys for crest. Mr. Herring traces the term cap to the jockey-cap, or something like it, in use when the first edition of Shakspere was printed. The date given to Foolscap in the “Archæologia,” xii., is 1661, and the following traditional story is related of its origin:—
When Charles I. found his revenues short, he granted certain privileges, amounting to monopolies; and among these was the manufacture of paper, the exclusive right of which was sold to certain parties, who grew rich, and enriched the Government at the expense of those who were obliged to use paper. At this time all English paper bore in water-marks the Royal arms. The Parliament, under Cromwell, made jests of this law in every conceivable manner; and, among other indignities to the memory of Charles, it was ordered that the Royal arms be removed from the Paper, and the fool’s cap and bells be substituted. These were also removed when the Rump Parliament was prorogued; but paper of the size of the Parliament’s journals still bears the name of “foolscap.”—“Notes and Queries,” Second Series, No. 13.
In a chapter on the colouring of paper, Mr. Herring relates that the practice of blueing the paper-pulp had its origin in an accidental circumstance. About the year 1790, at a paper-mill belonging to Mr. Buttenshaw, his wife was superintending the washing of some fine linen, when accidentally she dropped her bag of powder-blue into some pulp in a forward state of preparation, with which the blue rapidly incorporated. On Mr. Buttenshaw’s inquiring what had imparted the peculiar colour to the pulp, his wife, presuming that no great damage was done, took courage, and confessed the accident, for which she was afterwards rewarded by her husband, who, by introducing to the London market the improved blue make, obtained for it an advance of four shillings per bundle.
CONFESSIONS OF A CAPTIVE.
A CAUTION BY A CONFIRMED CYNIC.
Soft, versifying youths that prate,
And think themselves immensely clever,
Their elders often irritate,
By writing love-sick rhymes for ever—
A practice we abominate:
Shall we succumb to gammon? Never!
Not that I hate the fellows’ rhymes:
Once I was young too and enamoured:
Ah, me! those were transcendent times!
How often I my passion clamoured,
And loves and woes in jingling chimes,
Like smith on anvil, stoutly hammered!
Looked love to eyes that looked again—
Reciprocation rather pleasant,
And apt to stir both heart and brain
Of every grade, from peer to peasant!
Hold hard! this is a silly strain:
I’m quite oblivious of the present!
For I’ve a wife—a tender spouse,
Once the ideal of my fancies;
But, since we took to keeping house,
It happened—as it always chances—
We bade adieu to raptured vows,
For real life is not Romance’s!
That’s why the novels mostly end
At entrance into matrimony!
The writers may, perhaps, pretend,
’Tis one long round of bliss and honey—
A theory so odd, my friend,
That makes a victim rather funny!
Too soon one feels, when fairly hooked,
The iron doom, depend upon it!
One’s way of life for ever crooked,
A zigzag orbit round a bonnet!
Connubial bliss, though fair it looked,
Proves no fit theme for mirthful sonnet!
Hard, say the martyrs, is their fate:
Ask them from Petersburg to Cadiz:
And yet you youngsters idly prate
Of love, and bliss, and witching ladies!
Be warned in time, or know too late,
You never can retreat from Hades!
- ↑ About A.D. 500 the Emperor Theodoric abolished the duty on papyrus, which contributed to the revenue of the Roman empire, and upon which fresh imposts had been laid by successive rulers, until they became oppressive. Cassiodorus congratulated the whole world on the repeal of the impost on an article so essentially necessary to the human race, the general use of which, as Pliny says, “polishes and immortalises man?”—Mechanics’ Magazine.
