BOOKBINDING.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR?'] you allow me to call attention to the growing habit among publishers of fastening the sheets of books by wiring, instead of stitching them ? It may, for all the suffering public knows, be less troublesome, or cheaper, or perhaps less liable to come undone. But in any climate less damp than the Sahara, these wires are liable to rust, and eat through the paper which they are supposed to fasten. I have many books in such a state that a good shake would bring out three-fourths of the sheets. One of these, which ought never to need a stronger binding than its original cloth, is a somewhat bulky and costly volume, and when I explained its condition to its publisher, he assured me with perfect civility that publishers would continue to use this method of wiring books until book-buyers made it clear that they would endure it no longer. Will you, Sir, help them to say it clearly ?—I am, Sir, &c., [How are they to say it ? No customer has the smallest influence on the book trade, or three-volume novels would be dead.—En. Spectator.]
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