This reduction in size not seldom brings down a handsome folio to the size of quarto, and a quarto to an octavo.
With the old hand plough a binder required more care and caution to produce an even edge throughout than with the new cutting machine.

If a careless workman found that he had not ploughed the margin quite square with the text, he would put it in his press and take off "another shaving," and sometimes even a third.
Dante, in his "Inferno," deals out to the lost souls various tortures suited with dramatic fitness to the past crimes of the victims, and had I to execute judgment on the criminal binders of certain precious volumes I have seen, where the untouched maiden sheets entrusted to their care have, by barbarous treatment, lost dignity, beauty and value, I would collect the paper shavings so ruthlessly shorn off, and roast the perpetrator of the outrage over their slow combustion.

In olden times, before men had learned to value the relics of our printers, there was some excuse for the sins of a binder who erred from ignorance which was general; but in these times, when the historical and antiquarian value of old books is freely acknowledged, no quarter should be granted to a careless culprit.
It may be supposed that, from the spread of information, all real danger from ignorance is past.

Not so, good reader; that is a consummation as yet "devoutly to be wished." Let me relate to you a true bibliographical anecdote: In 1877, a certain lord, who had succeeded to a fine collection of old books, promised to send some of the most valuable (among which were several Caxtons) to the Exhibition at South Kensington.

Thinking their outward appearance too shabby, and not knowing the danger of his conduct, he decided to have them rebound in the neighbouring county town.