Calf bindings have always been great favorites with book-lovers, and there are few things more beautiful--_prima facie_, than a volume daintily bound in light French calf, as smooth as glass, as fine as silk, with elegant gold tooling without and within, gilt edges, and fly-leaves of finest satin. I said beautiful, _prima facie_--and this calls to mind the definition of that law term by a learned Vermont jurist, who said: "Gentlemen of the jury, I must explain to you that a _prima facie_ case is a case that is very good in front, but may be very bad in the rear." So of our so much lauded and really lovely calf bindings: they develop qualities in use which give us pause. Calf is the most brittle of the leathers--hence it is always breaking at the hinges; it is a very smooth leather--hence it shows every scratch instantly; it is a light and delicate leather--hence it shows soils and stains more quickly than any other. Out of every hundred calf-bound volumes in any well-used library, there will not remain ten which have not had to be re-bound or repaired at the end of twenty or thirty years. Heavy volumes bound in calf or half-calf leather will break by their own weight on the shelves, without any use at all; and smaller volumes are sure to have their brittle joints snapped asunder by handling sooner or later--it is only a question of time. Next comes Russia leather, which is very thick and strong, being made of the hides of cattle, colored, and perfumed by the oil of birch, and made chiefly in Russia. The objections to this leather are its great cost, its stiffness and want of elasticity, and its tendency to desiccate and lose all its tenacity in the dry or heated atmosphere of our libraries. It will break at the hinges--though not so readily as calf.