round, for every letter. Having cut round the letters, he proceeds to the central parts; and, after a while, the page is completed. A workman generally gets through one hundred characters a day, for which he will get sixpence. A page generally contains five hundred characters. When the engraver has completed his work, it is passed into the hands of the printer, who places it in the middle of a table: on one side is a pot of liquid ink, with a brush; and, on the other, a pile of paper: while, in front, there is a piece of wood, bound round with the fibrous parts of a species of palm, which is to serve for a rubber. The workman then inks his block with the brush; and taking a sheet of dry paper, with his left hand, he places it neatly on the block; and, seizing the rubber with his right hand, he passes it once or twice quickly over the back of the paper, when the impression is produced, the printed sheet hastily removed, and the workman proceeds with the next impression, till the whole number be worked off; and thus, without screw, lever, wheel, or wedge, a Chinese printer will manage to throw off 3,000 impressions in a day. After the copies are struck off, the next business is to fold the pages exactly in the middle; to collate, adjust, stitch, cut, and sew them; for all of which work, including the printing, the labourer does not receive more than ninepence a thousand. The whole apparatus of a printer, in that country, consists of his gravers, blocks, and brushes; these he may shoulder and travel with from place to place, purchasing paper and lamp-black as he needs them; and, borrowing a table anywhere, he may throw off his editions by the hundred or the score, as he is able to
