Mr. Gladstone mentioned as a wonderful feat the production of
a Bible, so far as regards the printing, folding, binding, and lettering, in about sixteen hours, by the Oxford University Press. Of course, the stereotyped plates of type were prepared beforehand, and every preparation had been made for the process, but all the rest was done, and very well done indeed, in the time mentioned; whereas it usually takes us six weeks to get a single book whole- bound, and not so well whole-bound as some of these Bibles. Mr. John Leighton, however, writing to Monday's Times from the. Royal Institution, tells us of a still greater marvel of modern printing. ." The greatest marvel of typography is our Times. Practically and truly, you could cast off your linen at one end of a machine, to behold it before your eyes transformed into a journal, the whole being produced in less time than it would take a writer of old to put a new nib to his pen." To be sure there does not seem any very special purpose in getting the Times printed on your cast-off linen, but that does put the mechanical feat in a
very surprising form, since it is impossible to suggest auy better guarantee against special preparation of the material for the operation.
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