Chinese presswork is done with rapidity. Du Halde said that a printer could perfect, without exertion, ten thousand sheets within one day. As this performance, about thirteen impressions in a minute, for a working day of twelve hours, is really greater than that of ordinary book-printing machines in modern printing offices, this part of the description of Du Halde may be rejected as entirely untrustworthy. We must believe that the good father did not count the work, and that his credulity was imposed upon by some Chinese braggart. Davis, with more reason, says that the usual performance of the Chinese printer is two thousand sheets per day, which is about one-fourth more than the daily task of an American hand-pressman. The simple nature of the work favors speed. The sheets are printed on one side only, and the printer is not delayed by the setting-off, or smearing of the ink, on the back of the white paper. Although the Chinese book is printed on paper of the size of two leaves, in pairs of two pages, it is not stitched through the back or centre of the double leaf. The paper is folded between the pages, and the fold is made the outer edge of the book; the cut edges are the back of the book, [p116] through which the stitching is done. Clumsy as this method of binding may seem to our standards of propriety, it is done in China with a neatness and thoroughness which are almost beyond criticism.[45] The labor of engraving separate blocks for every work, which would be regarded as an insuperable difficulty in the Western World, is esteemed but lightly by the patient and plodding Chinese, and is no hindrance to a very broad development of printing. A daily newspaper, known to European residents as the _Peking Gazette_, has been printed in Peking for centuries. This paper, which is made up chiefly of the orders of the emperor and the proceedings and papers of his general council, is printed from a composition of hard wax, which can be more quickly engraved or indented than wood. The presswork, as might be expected, is inferior to that done from engraved wooden blocks. The cost, in China, of engraving a full page, about twice the size of the fac-simile opposite, would be about forty-five cents; a careful imitation of the same page by a competent engraver on wood in New-York would cost about thirty-five dollars.