When a book is dog’s-eared, or its leaves have been turned, if the paper be of a thin, poor quality, its chances of restoration are better than if it were good and stiff. In the former case damp the leaves one by one with water in which a little gum tragacanth has been infused. This is not so much an adhesive as a mere stiffener, and is used as such for laces. Then flatten them, putting a piece of smooth white paper between every leaf.
There is, I fear, nothing to be done where the reader is so utterly devoid of all the instincts of a gentleman or a lady as to turn over a stiff, thick, highly glazed paper to mark the place! I have just found this done in a magnificently illustrated work from a circulating library, and, to aggravate the offence, it was on pictured pages! I would here remark that if every reader would keep by him a piece of indiarubber or eraser, and obliterate, or at least render illegible, all the scribblings made on margins, this detestably vulgar practice would soon be at an end.
It may be observed that to repair pages which have been torn across, or engravings, the rent is usually transverse—that is, such as to leave a small flap edge. If we take very strong gum in very minute quantity on the point of a camel’s-hair brush, we may often succeed with great care in perfectly reuniting the edges. Observe that in this, as in everything, the mender should not draw his conclusions from the first effort, which will probably be a failure, but from frequent careful observation and experiment. There are marvellously few people in the world who take the pains to become really good menders of anything—excepting lace and the like—hence there are few things mended at all except by botchers and amateurs.
Ink-Stains can be removed from paper by laying underneath the blot a pad of clean blotting-paper or fine muslin. Take a fine sponge, dip it in lemon-juice, and press it gently on the stain, so as to moisten it. Then with a clean, white, soft rag, folded into a pad, press on the spot, and the pad, lifted off, will remove a little of the ink. Repeat this process a few times, taking care to change the pad in your hand every time to a clean spot. Do not try to rub the stain out (as most people do), but to draw the ink away or out by sucking up or by absorption. If you simply rub or press the ink in again which has just been drawn out, you will only make bad worse. And here I would observe that by this process of pressing, absorbing, and changing the “sucker” applied, you can draw appalling stains out of almost anything. You cannot, of course, prevent chemical action or change of colour, but in most cases this is the best process.
It is better to begin with lemon-juice and a little salt and water where the paper is thin. When it is strong, a mixture of muriatic acid and water generally extracts ink.
In a great many cases the staining fluid can be drawn out by absorption before any chemical change in the colour of the stuff can have been effected. Therefore it is all-important to know how to do this yourself at once, and not wait till it can be sent to a dyer or scourer or cleaner. In a few hours’ time that which could have been promptly extracted will be past all cure. When you spill ink on paper, promptly apply, first of all, blotting-paper, and then try absorption. If any stain remains then, apply the acid.
To take out a Grease-Spot.—Heat an iron (I generally effect it with a burning cigar), and hold it as near as possible to the stain without burning the paper. If this be well done the grease, wax, &c., will rapidly disappear. If there are any traces left, place on it powdered calcined magnesia for a time. This is also a good means to extract grease, wax, or oil from cloth. Very often, where lemon-juice or acid would ruin the colour of a cloth or other fabric, chloroform will take out the spot and leave the colour unchanged.
Bone, well calcined and powdered, is an excellent absorbent of grease. It should be remembered that all such processes must be renewed, for after the powder or cloth applied has received a certain quantity of the grease or stain, it ceases to be taken in. A gentle pressure or rubbing, after laying paper over the powder, facilitates the absorption.
The celebrated Athanasius Kircher, who wrote in the sixteenth century, has left an amusing account of how he one night, stopping at a convent in Sicily, took a book from the library (it was Stephanus Fagundez’ In Præcep’a Ecclesiæ)—“a new book and elegantly bound”—and spilt over it and in it all the midnight oil from his lamp! In great alarm he sent for quicklime, but there was none to be had. So he bade the monks bring him some bones, which he quickly calcined and pulverised and applied. And the next morning there was not a trace of a spot, only a little smell of oil, which soon vanished. He adds, that plaster of Paris would have done as well.
Ascertain carefully the nature of the spot before trying to extract it. For resinous substances use spirits, or eau de cologne, or turpentine. Benzine extracts several substances.