The effort has been made in the description given to cover the process of making paper from the crudest rags. In enumerating the several kinds of paper, in another chapter, brief reference will be made to the varying methods required in their manufacture. In this chapter, no attempt has been made to cover more than the principal divisions or varieties of paper—writing, print, and wrapping papers.
♦The center of the industry♦
The United States, with characteristic enterprise, leads the world in paper-making, supplying about one-third of all that is used on the globe. The city of Holyoke, in Massachusetts, is the greatest paper center in the world, turning out each working-day some two hundred tons of paper, nearly one-half of which is “tub-sized,” “loft-dried” writings. The region in the vicinity of Holyoke is dotted with paper-mills, and within a few miles of the city is made about one-half of all the “loft-dried” writings produced in the United States. The tiny acorn planted two centuries ago has waxed with the years, gaining strength and vigor with the increasing strength of the nation, till now it has become a giant oak, whose branches extend to the lands beyond the seas.
SLITTING AND WINDING—[Page 78]
CHAPTER VI
WATER-MARKS AND VARIETIES OF PAPER
♦Importance of water-marks♦
Though the water-mark in a sheet of paper may at first thought seem a comparatively unimportant detail, the story of water-marks and the part they have played in momentous transactions would easily furnish material for a volume. Especially is this true of the early water-marks, with which there is connected much interesting history. They have even become important witnesses in the courts of justice, where their silent but eloquent testimony has brought confusion to seemingly clever criminals. The proof of the time when a water-mark was introduced has been the means of fixing the crime of forgery, where the forger, in order to reach the end sought through the forged document, dated the same back, and unconsciously used a paper bearing a water-mark of a later date. As the early water-marks have suggested the names of many varieties of paper, the two subjects are fittingly coupled.
It is not known exactly how long a history the water-mark has; the first evidence of one, in the form of a ram’s horn, is said to have been found in a book of accounts in 1330. Simple designs of common objects, such as a pot, urn, or jug, were popular forms of the water-mark in early days. Mention has already been made of Henry VIII. and the curious method he adopted of showing his contempt for the Pope, by having his paper marked with a hog wearing a miter. ♦Origin of “fool’s cap”♦ Then followed the coat-of-arms of the king, and when Charles I. was driven from the throne and beheaded, the “fool’s cap” and bells was in derision substituted for the royal arms, followed later by the figure of Britannia. Changing water-marks in those days meant stirring history. “Pot” paper had a tankard for its water-mark, and the “fool’s cap” gave its name to a larger sized paper, which has borne the name to the present day. “Post” was the old size made for letters, and bore a “post-horn” as its water-mark, the name being preserved to-day in the United States by “folio-post.” “Crown” paper, as its name suggests, bore the water-mark of a crown.