Page:Arts & Crafts Essays.djvu/167

 England, usually distributed among five classes of persons.

(1) The superintendent or person responsible for the whole work.

(2) The sewer, usually a woman, who folds, sews, and makes the head-bands.

(3) The book-edge gilder, who gilds the edges. Usually a craft apart.

(4) The forwarder, who performs all the other operations leading up to the finishing.

(5) The finisher, who decorates and letters the volume after it is forwarded.

In Paris the work is still further distributed, a special workman (couvreur) being employed to prepare the leather for covering and to cover. In the opinion of the writer, the work, as a craft of beauty, suffers, as do the workmen, from the allocation of different operations to different workmen. The work should be conceived of as one, and 143