But to return to our lady folders and their work. The sheets, as fast as they are folded, are arranged in piles upon the table, the girl who gathers the sheets together into separate books following the order of the _signatures_, or figures on the first page of each sheet. [Illustration: Sewing.] At the left of our picture, near the middle of the room, is seen a gatherer, who is engaged in making up “Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.” She is in a narrow isle between two tables, joined at the foot by a short one. On these three tables one half of the Dictionary is spread out at a time, in one hundred and fifteen piles of sheets. She walks down this isle picking a sheet off each pile, and when she has gone the entire round she has gathered one half of the book. When these piles are all gathered, the other half of the book is arranged, and gathered in the same way. Next, the sheets of the book are put into the stabbing-machine, that three holes may be made at the inner edge, when the sheets are stitched together by hand. The backs of magazines are covered with a strong paste, and the covers are then put on. The elevator machinery connecting with each story, of a capacity for lifting two tons, worthily facilitates the immense work of the establishment, as with colossal strength it lifts great burdens of paper, type, machinery, and deposits them on just the floor where they are needed. If the first printers could revisit the earth, with what interest would they make the tour of a modern printing-office! How would they call to mind their own narrow quarters, poor facilities, and creeping progress, contrasting them with the convenience, system, swiftness, finish, and grand results of to-day, in the now beautifully moulded and polished metal types, the success seemingly gained in setting type by machinery, and the comprehensive arrangements, of various perfected departments, all brought under the easy control of human skill! How unlike their own embryotic efforts “which gave to themselves fame, their art an existence, and civilization its motive power!” The first introduction of printing into America was in Mexico, by the Jesuits, who issued a “Manual for Adults,” in 1540. The first printing-office in America was established in Cambridge, Mass., in 1638; the first book printed was the “Bay Psalm-Book,” in 1640; the first newspaper was the “Boston News Letter,” published April 24, 1704. The first attempt made to print books for the blind was made by the Abbe Hauy, at Paris, in 1785. The letters were so large, however, the paper so thick, and the books so bulky and expensive, that they were of little practical use. No improvement had been made upon this system, so late as 1830, when the Paris press was still lumbering on in the old method. A few years later a French author, a teacher of the Paris school for the blind, writes, “The Americans have effected a revolution in the art of printing for the blind.”