Part 31 (1/2)

The real employment of the water mark may be said to have commenced at the time when it was a custom of the first printers to omit their names from their works Also, it is to be considered that at this period comparatively few people could either read or write and therefore pictures, designs or other uish the paper of one manufacturer froave their names to the different sorts of paper

The earliest knoater mark on linen paper represented a picture of a tower and was of the date of 1293 The next knoater nated is a ra to an official of Bordeaux which was then subject to England It is dated 1330

In the fifteenth century there were no distinctions in the quality of paper used for manuscripts or for books In the Mentz Bible of 1462 are to be found no less than three sorts of paper Of this Bible, the water mark in some sheets is a bull's head simply, and in others a bull's head fro line, at the end of which is a cross In other sheets the water rapes

In 1498 the water ht pointed star within a double circle The design of an open hand with a star at the top which was in use as early as 1530, probably gave the name to what is still called hand paper

It appears that even so high a personage as Henry VIII of England in 1540 utilized the water mark in order to show his contempt for and aniave orders for the preparation of paper, the waterwith a miter: this he used for his private correspondence

A little later, about the middle of the sixteenth century, the favorite paper inated the ter to this period was the device of a glove

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the device was a fool's cap and which has continued by nanate fool's cap

The water mark has continued to increase in popularity and to-day may be found in alures, numbers or names

The circumstance of the waterfrauds, forgeries and impositions in our courts of law and elsewhere

The following is introduced as a whimsical example of such detections and is said to have occurred in the fifteenth century, and is related by Beloe, London, 1807:

”The monks of a certain reat triumph, a letter which they claiin Mary with her own hand, not on the ancient papyrus, but on paper s The visitor to whom it was shown observed with affected solemnity, that the letter involved also a miracle because the paper on which it ritten could not have been in existence until over a thousand years after her death”

An interesting example of the use of water marks on paper for fraudulent purposes is to be found in a pamphlet entitled ”Ireland's Confessions” This person, a son of Saraver, about the end of the eighteenth century fabricated a pretended Shakespeare MSS, which as a literary forgery was the most remarkable of its time Previous to his confessions it had been accepted by the Shakespearean scholars as unquestionably the work of the i is a citation froed forward to the production of more manuscripts, it became necessary that I should posses; a sufficient quantity of old paper to enable me to proceed; in consequence of which I applied to a book-seller nas, St Martin's Lane, who, for the sus, suffered me to take from all the folio and quarto volumes in his shop the fly leaves which they contained By this means I was amply stored with that commodity--nor did I fear any mention of the circu disposition, I ell convinced, would never lead him to make the transaction public; in addition to which, he was not likely even to know anything concerning the supposed Shakespearean discovery by ine that my purchase of the old paper in question would have excited in hiree of suspicion As I was fully aware, from the variety of water-marks, which are in existence at the present day, that they must have constantly been altered since the period of Elizabeth and being for soe, I very carefully producedon such sheets of old paper as had noheard it frequently stated that the appearance of such reatly tended to establish their validity, I listened attentively to every remark which was leaned the intelligence that a jug was the prevalent water-n of Elizabeth; in consequence of which I inspected all the sheets of old paper then inupon the careful, however, to le with them a certain number of blank leaves, that the production on a sudden of so ht not excite suspicion in the breasts of those persons ere most conversant with thein 1662, characterizes the paper of his day:

”Paper participates in some sort of the character of the country whichneat, subtle, and court-like; the French light, slight, and slender; and the Dutch thick, corpulent, and gross, sticking up the ink with the sponginess thereof And he complains of the 'vast sums of money expended in our land for paper out of Italy, France, and Gerht be lessened were it made in our nation' ”

Ul in Bavaria which was the first paper mill known to have been established in Germany, and is said to have been the only one in Europe thenthe privy expenses of Henry VII of the year 1498 appears the following entry: ”A reward given to the paper mill, 16s 8d” This is probably the paper raphy It was located at Hertford, and the water mark he employed was a star within a double circle

The land previous to the revolution of 1688 was an industry of very s imported from Holland

The first paper mill established in Arated from Holland and settled in Gerh, near Philadelphia, on a stream afterwards called Paper Mill run, which empties into the Wissahicken river, was located the site which in company with William Bradford, a printer, he chose for his s, mostly the product of flax raised in the vicinity andapparel

It was Reauested the possibility of paper being made from wood He obtained his information on this subject from examination of wasps' nests

Matthias Koops in 1800 published a work on ”Paper” made from straood and other substances

His second edition appeared in 1801 and was composed of old paper re-made into new Another work on the subject of ”Paper from Straw, &c,”

by Piette, appeared in 1835, which said work contains es, each one of which was made from a different kind of material

Many other valuable works are obtainable which treat of rag paper manufacture and the stories they tell are instructive as well as interesting

CHAPTER xxxI