_Bookbinding._--While the mischief of _mildew_ on the _inside_ of books
has engaged some correspondents to seek for a remedy (Vol. ii., 103.
173.), a word may be put in on behalf of the _outside_, the binding. The
present material used in binding is so soft, flabby, and unsound, that
it will not endure a week's service. I have seen a bound volume lately,
with a name of repute attached to it; and certainly the _workmanship_ is
creditable enough, but the _leather_ is just as miserable as any from
the commonest workshop. The volume cannot have been bound many months,
and yet even now, though in good hands, it is beginning to rub _smooth_,
and to look, what best expresses it emphatically, _shabby_, contrasting
most grievously with the leather of another volume, just then in use,
bound some fifty or seventy years ago, and as sound and firm as a drum's
head--_common_ binding too, be it observed--as the modern _cover_ is
flabby and washy. Pray, sir, raise a voice against this wretched
_material_, for that is the thing in fault, not the workmanship; and if
more must be paid for undoctored outsides, let it be so.