The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-10 00:00:00

PRINTING THE BIBLE-SCOT-
LAND.-REPORT.

PRESENTED TO BOTH HOUSES OF PALIAMENT BY COM.

NAND OF HER MAJESTY.

Unto the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty—
Your Majesty's sole and only master printers in Scot-
land beg, with sentiments of the deepest loyalty and af-
fection, to present their duty to your Majesty, and
humbly to crave your Majesty's most gracious attention
to the following account of their proceedings, from the
date of their last report, in discharging the solemn trust
with which your Majesty has been pleased to honour
them. To the faithful performance of the duties re-
quired of them, it has been their earnest endeavour to
aevote themselves, with an assiduity proportioned to the
deep sense of responsibility which a just consideration of
those duties cannot fail to awaken.
In the first report which we presented to your Ma-
jesty, a full explanation was given of the measures
adopted by us for carrying into practical effect the gra-
cious intention expressed in your royal warrant for the
appointment of the board—of lessening, as far as pos-
sible, the cost price of the Sacred Scriptures and other
works falling under our privilege, by opening the print-
ing and publishing of them to free competition, in so far
as might be found to be consistent with due security for
the correctness of the text.

On this point it was stated in particular, that the im-
portant instructions which accompanied your Majesty's
Commission were found to be at once so distinct and
ample, that, in ordinary cases at least, little more was
necessary for securing the attainment of your Majesty's
most benevolent object, than to convert those instructions
into the form of practical regulations for the guidance of
printers, and to make the requisite provisions for having
the regulations so derived efficiently enforced. The
conditions under which, in conformity with the said in-
structions, license is granted by the Lord Advocate,
while they impose no restriction which can be felt to be
a hardship by any printer competent to embark in the
business of publication, and honestly desirous of execut-
ing with fidelity the work undertaken by him, afford to
the board all necessary facilities for enforcing accuracy.
A license can be obtained by any person, on intimating
to the Lord Advocate, according to a duly authenticated
form, of which drafts are supplied by the Crown Agent,
his intention to print and publish an edition of any of
the works intrusted to the care of the board.; provided
always he enter into a cautionary bond to print the pro-
posed edition in exact conformity with some previously
l -
authorised edition of the same work—to furnish the
board, so as to enable them to
fidelity et
wit copy both
of the edition
printed from and of the new edition—the latter in such
portions as they shall see cause to prescribe—and to
cancel, under their direction, every deviation from the
original text. It is obvious, on the other hand, that the
due observance of these provisions must supply the board
with every requisite means of discharging satisfactorily
the important duties with which they have been intrusted.
It has been an object of primary care to the board to
insist on the most rigid compliance with the regulations
to which they have now adverted. In no case has an
edition of any of the works subject to their control been
permitted to be published without a license. Nor has
the publication of any new edition been allowed, of which
a specimen copy had not been previously transmitted to
the secretary and brought before the board. In regard
to the portions of new editions transmitted, and also to
the times of transmission, they have been anxious in-
deed to consult the convenience of publishers—but sub-
ject, in every case, to the conditions required by the
faithful discharge of their own duty. And they feel it
to be only an act of justice to those who have been en-
gaged in printing and publishing under their superin-
tendence, that they should here state that, in reference
to these regulations—with oneAor two exceptions, not of
recent occurrence—the authority of the board has been
duly respected.
To the rule originally adopted by us in regard to the
specimen-sheets to be transmitted to the secretary, by
which it is required that these sheets shall be part of
the finished work, from the heap, we continue to adhere.
The propriety, indeed the necessity of the rule, has been
amply confirmed by. experience. The number of cancels
which, in several instances even of large impressions;
we have found it necessary to exact, notwithstanding
the heavy penalty which it was kno'wn that, under the
existing rule, each cancel that might be required would
inflict, affords conclusive evidence that, were the board
to rest satisfied with that transmission of a mere proof,
not a few cases would occur in which there would be de-
volved on the committee a large share of the work of
correcting the same. Such an arrangement would be
liable to the still more fatal objection of precluding the
supervision by the board of the impression as finally
thrown off. The method now pursued, on the contrary,
secures at once two independent revisals, and enables
the board to provide for the correcting of an imper-
fect impression, even when on the threshold of publica-
tion. Aware that it is competent for us to require can-
cels to be made in any part of a work printed under our
authority, provided they be ordered within a month
after the last sheets shall have been transmitted for in-
spection—that no authority will be given for publication
until the whole work shall have been revised under the
direction and superintendence of the secretary, aad that
the specimen-sheets to be so revised must be taken from
the entire impression fully printed off—the publisher
cannot fail to be determined, by the great expense ne-
cessarily attendant on cancelling under such circum-
stances, to guard against the oversight of errors with
the most anxious solicitude. Effectual provision is
thus made for a careful revisal of every new edition,
even before it come to be submitted for the inspection
of the board.

A specimen copy of each new impression, after hav-
ing undergone the revisal now noticed, has been regu-
larly forwarded to the secretary. Under his superin-
tendence, and on his responsibility, it has been again
subjected to an anxious examination. The errata dis-
covered by this renewed revisal have been carefully
, were likely to
noted down and submitted in detail for the decision of
the board.
In judging of the errors brought_ before them---in every
case of misprinted words, of such errors of punctuation
as affected the sense, and even of errors which, though
erdidihseclrieepvaendeies the sacred
narrative, and distract the current of serious thought,
twhietyhdmraigwhttheleaavdeehtthioehseonfsethuentroeuacdheerdfrom
the board have, from the commencement of their course,
themselves to
felt it to be imperative upon them to exact cancels.
of different
Where the deviations from the authorised edition were
of a less material character, andsuch as were likely to
be discovered only by readers who. might be making it
have sufficient evidence that the deviations referred to
editions, and
ciaanldobwjehcetrteo
the note h toha
did not result from carelessness, they satisfied themselves
for some time with directing the attention of the pub-
lishers to these minute inaccuracies, and with warning
them, in any case in which
,the deviations were
numerous, that unless there should be an .
mprovement
in subsequent editions, the board would feel it to be their
duty to call into exercise their full power.
The effect of the repeated admonitions given to pub-
lishers has been greatly to reduce the slumber of the
minute deviations now noticed ; and in the few cases in
which a disposition has been shown to neglect the cau-
tions of the board, we have latterly, without hesitation,
exacted cancels. While we are aware that scarcely
any degree of attention can secure au exact reprint, we
have judged that we imposed no unnecessary hardship
on publishers, by requiring the correction even of minute
inaccuracies to which their attention had been previously
directed. It is believed that, particularly in the editions
recently sanctioned by us, a very high degree of accuracy
has thus been attained. _

It was explained in our former reports, that while the
license granted by the Lord Advocate can protect only
an exact reprint of an authorised edition, the board did
the e
not conceiveieetrctnios re
themselveseeived ftotb.e.m yourprecluded,e
Majestyi from 'al-
lowing the correction of a manifest error of one author-
ised edition, by the preferable reading of another
authorised edition. They have. continued ,to ad on this