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Show MARBLE1ZING PAPER. Dexterous Manipulation of Gum Senegal Does the Work in a Highly Satisfactory Sat-isfactory Manner. THE VIEWS OF MODERN JUDGES. Where Crimes Originate The Effect of Drink Upon Crime Crime and Women. One of the funniest things that anybody any-body ever imagined in thiti world was the notion of marbling paper. That is the name applied to the sort of red and va.i-colored ornamentation on the edges cf nicely bound books, and on their bindings, too, sometimes. Every one has observed such markings, but it is safe to say that not one person out of 10,000 has ever taken the trouble to speculate spec-ulate as to how the effect is produced. There is nothing commonplace about the process. On the contrary it is a marvel worthy of contemplation by the eewthote and the sage. You can seethe thjng done any time you please at the government printing office if you care to ask the privilege. There is a tree in Senegal, Africa, from which exudes a gum, just as any other ort of gum exudes from a cherry or other kind of tree. The natives of Senegal Sene-gal collect the gum from this peculiar tree and sell it to contractors, who send it all over the world in the shape of little lit-tle hard lumps. It iB commercially known as "gum Senegal." 'J.ie most important use for it is this one of marbling mar-bling paper. For this purpose a solution is made of the gum in water. A tank, say four feet long and two feet wide, is filled with the solution, and then the operation is ready to be performed. At the government printing office you can see it done any day; the courteous attendant in charge will show you how he does it. - To begin with, you will see nothing bnt a tank of a foot or so in depth filled with a liquid not especially doscribable. On a shelf close by are half a dozen paint pots filled with most brilliant water colors. The operator takes the blue brush and sprinkles the surface of the liquid in the tank with drops of that color. . Then he seizes the brush from the vermilion pot and sprinkles a spatter spat-ter of bright red also. Next he reaches forthe green and distributes that. Finally Final-ly a sprinkling of yellow is employed to wind np with. Now the expert takos a long stick armed with fine teoth like a comb, and with it combs the surface of the liquid in the tank just once from one end to the other. Then he gives it a single comb crosswise. The result of this is a most onrioua mingling of the blue, vermilion, ver-milion, green and yellow.. Next, on the surface of the fluid he carefully lays a sheet of white paper, and lifts it off again by one corner. Lo, the sheet has reoetved a reproduction of the water color pattern from th liquid most elaborate elab-orate and most beautiful. To reproduce it, even Imperfectly, by hand would take months of labor. Each color in the pattern pat-tern is as distinct and brilliant as water colors can possibly be. This, however, is but a simple pattern. . The expert takos a small comb with wire teeth and makes a wiggle waggle over the surface of the mixture. He lays down another white sheet upon it, and behold, a lovely design resembling a collection col-lection of conventionalized peacock's feathers appears. Another wiggle waggle wag-gle of the wire comb and a sheet similarly simi-larly treated exhibits a series of gorgeous gor-geous arabesques altogether beyond description de-scription as to their brilliance and intricacy. in-tricacy. But this is not all. The operator stirs up the liquid in the tank again, so that all the colors disappear. disap-pear. Thon he chooses other paints, making gr.een the predominant one, and sprinkles them over the Burface. As a magician might exercise his wand over a reflecting pool he disturbs the smooth solution with the wires, and weird and fantastic dosigns spring into view upon the white sheets that he floate for an instant in-stant and then lifts from the fluid. Giants, hobgoblins and monsters of all degrees pursue each other across the paper with glaring eyes and contorted attitudes. m When you were a little boy or girl perhaps per-haps yon have rubbed with your slate pencil upon your school slate, and then with a moistened finger spread the whitey substance over the wooden bound stratum of plutonio mineral. You have wondered thon to see what astonishiug demons and creatures inconceivable started out upon the slate, caught by the eye of your imagination. It is the same way with the wk of the artist in marbling for books, though he does not dare to produce such fantastic things to please the popular taste. Only the commonplace com-monplace sort of marbling does one ' find on books and such things; whatever extraordinary the expert produces ha keeps for himself, perhaps, to show what wonderful result the accidental mingling of random tints on a solution of gum Senegal will bring forth. Washington Star. |