Paper

A substance composed more or less of rags or vegetable fibre, used tor printing, writing, &c. The various kinds of paper may be distinguished thus:—

• According to size; as Demy, Foolscap, Crown, &c.
• According to use; as printing, writing, wrapping, &c., papers.
• According to composition; as rag paper, straw paper, wood paper, &c.
• According to mode of manufacture; as hand-made, machine-made paper, &c.
• According to the water-mark; as water-lined, wove, laid, &c.

The varieties of paper are, in fact, innumerable, just as are the materials from which it can be made and the uses to which it may be applied. It is necessary, therefore, in a comparatively small work like the present, to restrict our remarks to those sorts of paper with which the printer has most to do.

As regards the names of different sizes of papers, it may be remarked that in ancient times, when comparatively few people could read, pictures of every kind were much in use where writing would now be employed. Every shop, for instance, had its sign as well as every public house, and those signs were not then, as they are often now, only painted upon a board, but were invariably actual models of the thing which the sign expressed—as we still occasionally see some such sign as a bee-hive, a tea-canister, a doll, or a lamb, and the like.

For the same reason printers employed some device, which they put upon the title-pages and at the end of their books. And paper-makers also introduced marks by way of distinguishing the paper of their manufacture from that of others; which marks, becoming common, naturally gave their names to different sorts of paper. A favourite paper-mark between 1540 and 1560 was the jug or pot, and would appear to have originated the term, pot paper.

The foolscap was a later device, and does not appear to have been nearly of such long continuance as the former. It has given place to the figure of Britannia, or that of a lion rampant sup-porting the cap of liberty on a pole. The name, however, has continued, and we still denominate paper of a particular size by the name of “foolscap.”

Post paper seems to have derived its name from the post horn, which was at one time its distinguishing mark. It does not appear to have been used prior to the establishment of the General Post-office (1670), when it became a custom to blow a horn; to which circumstance, no doubt, we may attribute its introduction. Bath post is so named after that fashionable city. The sizes of the sheets of the different classes of paper will be found under the head Dimensions of Paper.

The quality of paper is of the utmost importance in printing, for it is impossible to produce good press work on bad paper. Nothing but experience, however, will teach what is the most suitable kind for any particular job; while the price at which it is to be executed too frequently precludes a judicious selection. Some useful considerations on this subject will be found under the head of Press Work.