It must be conceded in favour of printers that some authors do write an execrable hand.  One sometimes receives a letter which requires about three readings before it can be understood.  At the first time of reading the meaning is scarcely intelligible, at the second time some faint glimpse of the writer’s object in writing is obtained, and at the third time the main point of the letter is deciphered.  Such men may be deemed to be the plague of printers.  A friend of Beloe ``the Sexagenarian’’ was remonstrated with by a printer for being the cause of a large amount of swearing in his office. ``Sir,’’ exclaimed Mr. A., ``the moment `copy’ from you is divided among the compositors, volley succeeds volley as rapidly and as loudly as in one of Lord Nelson’s victories.’’

There is a popular notion among authors that it is not wise to write a clear hand; and Me’nage was one of the first to express it.  He wrote:  ``If you desire that no mistakes p 123shall appear in the works which you publish, never send well-written copy to the printer, for in that case the manuscript is given to young apprentices, who make a thousand errors; while, on the other hand, that which is difficult to read is dealt with by the master-printers.’’ It is also related that the late eminent Arabic scholar, Mr. E. W. Lane, who wrote a particularly good hand, asked his printer how it was that there were always so many errors in his proofs.  He was answered that such clear writing was always given to the boys, as experienced compositors could not be spared for it.  The late Dean Hook held to this opinion, for when he was asked to allow a sermon to be copied out neatly for the press, he answered that if it were to be printed he would prefer to write it out himself as badly as he could.  This practice, if it ever existed, we are told by experienced printers does not exist now.

It must, one would think, have been the badness of the ``copy’’ that induced the compositors to turn ``the nature and theory of the Greek verb’’ into the native theology of the Greek verb; ``the conserp 124vation of energy’’ into the conversation of energy; and the ``Forest Conservancy Branch’’ into the Forest Conservatory Branch.

Some printers go out of their way to make blunders when they are unable to understand their ``copy.’’ Thus, in the Times, some years ago, among the contributors to the Garibaldi Fund was a bookbinder who gave five shillings.  The next down in the list was one ``A.  Lega Fletcher,’’ a name which was printed as A Ledger stitcher.

Some very extraordinary blunders have been made by the ignorant misreading of an author’s contractions.  It is said that in a certain paper which was sent to be printed the words Indian Government were contracted as Indian Govt.  This one compositor set up throughout his turn as Indian goat.  A writer in one of the Reviews wrote the words ``J.  C. first invaded Britain,’’ and a worthy compositor, who made it his business to fill up all the abbreviations, printed this as Jesus Christ instead of Julius Caesar.