Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/355

Rh employing our talents in the production or in the distribution of wealth.

(387.) Another circumstance omitted to be noticed in the first edition relates to what is technically called "the overplus," which may be now explained. When 500 copies of a work are to be printed, each sheet of it requires one ream of paper. Now a ream, as used by printers, consists of 21 quires, or 516 sheets. This excess of sixteen sheets is necessary in order to allow for "revises,"—for preparing and adjusting the press for the due performance of its work, and to supply the place of any sheets which may be accidentally dirtied or destroyed in the processes of printing, or injured by the binder in putting into boards. It is found, however, that three per cent, is more than the proportion destroyed, and that damage is less frequent in proportion to the skill and care of the workmen.

From the evidence of several highly respectable booksellers and printers, before the Committee of the House of Commons on the Copyright Act, May, 1818, it appears that the average number of surplus copies, above 500, is between two and three; that on smaller impressions it is less, whilst on larger editions it is greater; that, in some instances, the complete number of 500 is not made up, in which case the printer is obliged to pay for completing it; and that in no instance have the whole sixteen extra copies been completed. On the volume in the reader's hands, the edition of which consisted of 3000, the surplus amounted to fifty-two,—a circumstance arising from the improvements in printing and the increased care of the pressmen. Now this overplus ought to be