THE PAPER STAINER.
PRINTING PRESS.
The trade of the Paper Stainer has grown to be one of considerable importance, and this is not to be wondered at when we consider how much the art of paper staining has increased the means of decorating our houses, by hanging the walls with elegant patterns printed in beautiful colours, instead of leaving them of one dull uniform hue, or a bare surface of wood and plaster.
In old times the walls of rooms were either of panelled wood, sometimes carved and polished, or were hung with tapestry made with the needle, or with woven silk, cotton, or linen, but the former was extremely costly, and the latter neither cleanly nor healthy. The trade of the Paper Stainer has to a great extent superseded both, and the interior walls of houses are now seldom formed entirely of wood, since they are intended to be covered with various qualities of paper hangings.
Front of Printing Block. Back of Wooden Block for Printing.
The mode of printing or painting a pattern on large sheets of paper has now been in use for nearly two hundred years, although, of course, improved methods are at present employed.
There are three modes of producing the pattern on paper hangings. 1st. Wooden blocks are carved with the outlines of the figures only in relief; with these the paper is printed, and the pattern is afterwards finished by hand painting with a pencil. This mode is slow and too expensive for ordinary use. 2dly. A sheet of leather, tin, or copper, is cut with holes in the required pattern, and a brush dipped in colour is worked over the sheet after it is laid upon the paper, so that the paint goes through the holes, and leaves the pattern in colour. This is called stencilling, and is only employed for very common hangings. The third process consists of carving a wood block for each of the colours used in the pattern, and printing the paper by almost exactly the same method as that employed for printing floor-cloth, an operation which has already been described.