The means in use among the Chinese for producing an impression of letters appears to be nearly the same with those invented in the infancy of the art. Blocks of hard wood, or masses of metal forming a kind of stereotype are printed from, by a simple and expeditious process, and solely by manual labor, as presses for the purpose are entirely unknown. The Canton Gazette, a kind of court journal of appointments, arrivals, and departures, is one of the few publications which are printed from movable types. The blocks which are mostly used for engraving these stereotypes upon, are made of hard and wood, divided into slabs, in the direction of the grain. The sub ject to be engraved is carefully written or drawn on thin paper, and pasted reversed upon the board ; the wood is then cut from around the characters, and the let ters remain in low relief. Much care is used in adjusting the written pattern, as it is not possible to rectify a mistake on copper or other metal. The cost of en graving depends entirely on the size and delicacy of the letter, the price increasing in proportion to the smallness of the type. The equipments of a printer are very simple and cheap, and the opera tions less complicated than almost any other mechanical process. The board or slab of wood is placed on a table before the workman, and a pile of dry paper, cut to the proper size, at his side, when, with a rude bamboo brush, a coating of liquid Indian ink is put upon it; a sheet of pa per is then placed on the top, and the impression completed by rubbing it over once or twice with a kind of vegetable fibre ; the sheet is than lifted off, and the process repeated with the next.
In the actual business of a printing office, the first operation, called compos ing, is begun by the compositor laying the letter, called types (see TYPES), into as many cases as may be judged expedient in the first instance (see CASE), laying the italic in cases dis tinct from the roman, each letter or sort in the box appropriated to it : having done this with one fount, he will put the cases into the case ruck, andproceed with another fount, till the whole of the letter is laid ; he will put the superfluous sorts either into a font case or into coffins ; and he will then be ready to take copy. The compositor having taken copy, and received directions the mea sure, the length' of the page, any peculiar ity in the spelling of particular words, the use of capital letters, the punctuation, the words that are to be in italic or small capitals, and any other directions that may be deemed necessary, proceeds to make his measurer and cut a composing rule he then begins to compose, letter by letter, till he has formed a word ; he separates this from the following word by a space, and so continues till he has com posed a line ; he then justifies this line by increasing the space between the words, or lessening it, according to cir cumstances, so that the line shall be to lerably tight in the composing stick ; and thus proceeds till he has completed a page ; after having set the head line and direc tion line with the signature, he ties a page cord round it to preserve it from falling asunder, puts it on a page-paper, andplaces it on the bottom of his frame ; and thus continues till he has composed a sheet. It may be necessary to state that every line is of the same length, whether the types fill it out or not ; the last line of a paragraph, lines of poetry, and short lines of any other description, are filled up with quadrats to the proper length, in or der that they may be secured from de rangement by being wedged up in the i chase; which is termed locking-up.
The pages are then taken to the im posing stone, and arranged in the proper order ; the page-papers removed ; a chase is then placed over them, furniture put about them, and the pagecords taken away ; proper quoins are then selected, and the form is locked up. It is then taken to a press, and one impression is printed ; this is styled the first proof, which is folded and taken to the reader with the copy; a reads the copy to him, while he examines the proof and marks the errors of the compositor, and puts a query to any doubtful matter for the author's consideration ; the proof is then returned to the compositor, who corrects the errors and mistakes, and a second impression is printed with more care and generally on .better paper ; this is styled a clew proof; it is examined by the first proof to see that the errors of workmanship are corrected, which is termed revising, and then sent out with' the copy to the author ; he makes what alterations and corrections he may think necessary ; these are corrected by the compositor ; another impression is printed, revised, and read finally, and with care, for press ; the margin is then adjusted ; and the corrections being care fully made, it is taken to the press to be printed off.
In the mean time, after the author has returned the sheet for press, the ware houseman delivers out the proper quan tity of paper, which the pressman wets,. by drawing the paper, to the extent of three, four, five, or six dips for each quire, through clean water, according as the paper maybe hard sized or porous, and also as the form may be solid or open ; the paper as it is wetted is laid upon a board, opened out, and another board is laid upon it with weights ; on the follow ing day it is turned, which causes fresh surfaces to come into contact with each other, and diffuses the moisture equally throughout every part of the heap ; it will be in good condition to print on the next day. This wetting the paper causes it to receive the impression of the ink in a much more pm:feet manner than it could possibly be made to do if dry. The pressman having received the fornis, lays the inner form on the press, and prints one copy, which is called a revise ; this he takes to the person ap pointed to revise it, and while that is do ing, proceeds to secure the form on the table of the press by means of quoins ; to place his tympan sheet ; to fix the points which make small holes in the paper that enable him to cause the pages to dill pre cisely on the back of each other when the second side of the paper isrinted, and to produce an even and impres sion in all the pages ; he then cuts his friskct; Which preserves the margin of the paper clean, and when the revise is corrected, prcieeeds to ink the surface of the types by means of balls or rollers. When the whole impression of oneside of the paper is printed, he lifts the form off the press, washes the ink off the face of the type with ley; and rinses it with water. ile then proceeds in a similar manner with the outer form, which com pletes the sheet ; and thus sheet after sheet.