and printing machine, the want of them has caused great
disappointment. To add a climax to the story, many of the "pulped"
specifications have had to be reprinted more than once since their
destruction.

CHAPTER VI. THE BOOKWORM.

THERE is a sort of busy worm
That will the fairest books deform,
By gnawing holes throughout them;
Alike, through every leaf they go,
Yet of its merits naught they know,
Nor care they aught about them.

Their tasteless tooth will tear and taint
The Poet, Patriot, Sage or Saint,
Not sparing wit nor learning.
Now, if you'd know the reason why,
The best of reasons I'll supply;
'Tis bread to the poor vermin.

Of pepper, snuff, or 'bacca smoke,
And Russia-calf they make a joke.
Yet, why should sons of science
These puny rankling reptiles dread?
'Tis but to let their books be read,
And bid the worms defiance."
J. DORASTON.

A most destructive Enemy of books has been the bookworm. I say "has
been," because, fortunately, his ravages in all civilised countries have
been greatly restricted during the last fifty years. This is due partly
to the increased reverence for antiquity which has been universally
developed--more still to the feeling of cupidity, which has caused
all owners to take care of volumes which year by year have become more
valuable--and, to some considerable extent, to the falling off in the
production of edible books.

The monks, who were the chief makers as well as the custodians of books,
through the long ages we call "dark," because so little is known of
them, had no fear of the bookworm before their eyes, for, ravenous as
he is and was, he loves not parchment, and at that time paper was not.
Whether at a still earlier period he attacked the papyrus, the paper of
the Egyptians, I know not--probably he did, as it was a purely vegetable
substance; and if so, it is quite possible that the worm of to-day, in
such evil repute with us, is the lineal descendant of ravenous ancestors
who plagued the sacred Priests of On in the time of Joseph's Pharaoh, by
destroying their title deeds and their books of Science.

Rare things and precious, as manuscripts were before the invention of
typography, are well preserved, but when the printing press was invented
and paper books were multiplied in the earth; when libraries i