PAGE 69
This page is the last of Chapter 6, in which Sir Arthur and his daughter Miss Wardour, the love interest of the hero Lovel, leave to go home and get robbed by higway men on the way. Oldbuck and Lovel will soon find out and go to try and help them, creating another sensational activity at the end of the chapter before the new one begins.
It's obvious by the XX at the bottom of the page and on previous pages that this chapter was particularly interesting for whomever was reading it, though it is unclear as to why. The stains as well look as though they might be a mix of oxidation and finger prints, so this may have been an often read portion of the novel.
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PAGINATION
Pagination, or the numbering of pages in sequence, was not common until the 16th century. Before that, only the recto, or the front, of each page leaf was numbered, which would actually be referred to as foliation, not pagination, because it was numbering the folios of paper folded, not each individual page, so that the printer knew which pages went where when compiling text.
Since the page numbers would have been printed at the same time as the text, it is interesting to note that the whole text and corresponding number don't often line up with the facing page. This means that even though the pages were all compiled into the same sized frame, the printing process shifted some down and some up, making them readable but ultimately uneven. Though it would have been noticeable, it wouldn't have needed to be fixed; as long as you could read it, and there were no mistakes textually, it would have been kept on. It could also have been a binder error when quireing and cutting the sheets of paper, though unlikely.
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PAPER
Rag paper, which is one of the oldest ways to produce paper, would have been cut into large sheets that were then folded down by the printer after the printing was done and compiled into the corrected collation for the book.
Rag paper tends to be softer and have a thicker texture than the paper we are used to today, usually paper made from wood-pulp. The unfortunate part about wood-pulp paper is that the acid content within it is so heavy that it will eventually disintegrate even if it is barely used. It also contributes to the frailty of the paper which will break as you turn pages and start to flake with time. Rag paper will last longer than wood-pulp paper because it's acid content causes it to stain more often than break down.
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