Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/450

410 410 THOMAS NELSON. services they owe much of the superiority of their illustrations), a drawing or print may be converted into an engraving suitable for printing from by the simple action of light, and these engravings, either for copper-plate or letter-press printing, may be multi- plied and made larger or smaller at will. The store- rooms are said to contain upwards of fifty thousand wood-cuts and electrotypes. Even the inks and varnishes are manufactured upon the premises, Messrs. Thomas Nelson and Sons employ some four hundred and fifty work-people in their establish- ment, about one- half of whom are young women. The whole of Scotland is of course supplied from the head-quarters in Hope Park ; but they have also large branches in London and New York. The former situated in, or rather forming, Warwick Build- ings, at the corner of Paternoster Row is, though a branch, as large a bookselling warehouse as any in London, and in its interior arrangements is unrivalled. The basement storey is devoted to the stowage of wholesale stock and the execution of export and country orders, and over the shop there are four lofty floors. The Scotch have during the century especially cul- tivated the trade of printing and bookselling. In the former branch alone, ten thousand persons are em- ployed in Scotland, five thousand of whom are engaged in the capital. In 1860 there were in Edinburgh no less than thirty firms, who combine the united business of publishing and bookselling, besides ninety who con- fine themselves to bookselling alone. The eight or nine leading houses, with one exception, print them- selves the books they sell ; a practice which is almost