porter's quarters and the kitchen.

Manawatu Herald, Volume 06, 6 April 1893, Page 3

porter's quarters and the kitchen.

Nearly all account booka have marbled edges. Why ? We do not pretend to say, but as it is a fact we were not surprised to find that all the large volumes ruled, printed, and bound in the Government Printing Department, for use in the Big Building and elsewhere, are put through the process of marbling. The process is interesting. The operator has before him a long narrow bath, wider than the width of the book to be treated-, in which is a solution of gum. On the face of the gum aro various colors moved into pattern by the skill of the operator and when to his liking he takes the ledger and gently places the edges of the leaves upon this coloured surface which is thus taken on to the face of the paper. The book is placed to dry, and tl • whole colouring matter remaining in the bath is run off and fresh placed on the gum and the process again re* peated.

The stamp department is kept separate from the rest of the Government Printing Department, and is in a separate building. The paper used for stamps is specially made in England and specially water-marked. It comes out in books containing so many sheets just the size for a sheet of stamps and every page used or damaged has to be most carefully accounted for. Though the Department " makes " money the Government Printer does not desire anyone else should do so, illegitimately.

It has been said that it is the keeping of the fortune, not the making of it, that takes it out of a man. Jay Gould's private income at the time of his death must have been, so it is said, close upon a million a year. He probably did not spend 2£ per cent of it and thus the other 97^ per cent had to be invested. And the worry of investing £975,000 a year to advantage, together with the anxiety of seeing that the original capital did not depreciate, told heavily upon Jay Gould.