"Dear Blades,--I send you an example of the `enemy'-mosity of an
ordinary housefly. It hid behind the paper, emitted some caustic
fluid, and then departed this life. I have often caught them in
such holes.' 30/12/83." The damage is an oblong hole, surrounded
by a white fluffy glaze (fungoid?), difficult to represent in a woodcut.
The size here given is exact.



CHAPTER VIII.

BOOKBINDERS.

IN the first chapter I mentioned bookbinders among the Enemies
of Books, and I tremble to think what a stinging retort might be made
if some irate bibliopegist were to turn the scales on the printer,
and place HIM in the same category. On the sins of printers,
and the unnatural neglect which has often shortened the lives
of their typographical progeny, it is not for me to dilate.
There is an old proverb, " 'Tis an ill bird that befouls its
own nest"; a curious chapter thereupon, with many modern examples,
might nevertheless be written. This I will leave, and will now
only place on record some of the cruelties perpetrated upon books
by the ignorance or carelessness of binders.

Like men, books have a soul and body. With the soul, or literary portion,
we have nothing to do at present; the body, which is the outer
frame or covering, and without which the inner would be unusable,
is the special work of the binder. He, so to speak, begets it;