“To prevent Mistakes and Impositions, these printed Bills are placed in the Front of every Book in the banded Binding and in no other. March 11, 1776”

Authenticating “bills” serving as front pastedown and front free endpaper of George Fisher, The Instructor:or, Young Man’s Best Companion Twenty second edition (London, 1775) Price bound 2s. 6d. ESTC N8733 [Call number: (Ex) Item 6617351]

“In 1776, the bookseller Sylvanus Chirm also made an attempt to replace ‘the deceitful Practice of stabbed Bindings’ with books sewn on bands, … ” (N. Pickwoad, “Bookbinding in the eighteenth century,” Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume 5. 1695–1830, p.287)

Chirm describes ‘binding in the common manner’ and his remedy:

“It is called the punch’d or stabb’d Binding, and is done as follows: The Sheets
being folded into a Book, two Holes punched. thro’ them near the Back, and a
String drawn thro’ each Hole, into the Pasteboard Sides is the chief Fastening;
the Books bound this Way are made to open stiff at first, in order to appear strong;
but that is a mere Deception: opening them wide (as Children are apt to do)
strains them so much that some of the Leaves are soon torn off the Strings, and
become loose. Sometimes one or both the Strings break, and the whole Book then
falls to Pieces. To remedy this Evil, a Method is now adopted, of binding these
Books (as well as all others) upon Bands: these Bands are laid across the Back, and
every Leaf is sewed down to them, which with proper glewing, renders the Book
so strong and durable, as to do more than twice the Service of those bound the
common Way.”

Pickwoad further notes that the project was taken over by Chirm’s partner and successor, George Herdsfield

“School Books in Chirm’s Binding”
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015063895281;view=2up;seq=8
Charles Marshall. A practical introduction to arithmetic; or, The teacher of arithmetic’s assistant: containing, arithmetic of whole numbers, with vulgar, decimal, and duodecimal fractions. To which is added, an appendix of directions and examples for receipts, promissory notes, bills of exchange, bills of parcels, bills of book-debts, and letters; with various exercises on the same.Fifth Edition. London: Printed for G. Herdsfield, 1789.
[Label of successor, George Herdsfield, is from example at the University of Michigan]

For more on this project designed to improve the sturdiness of the bindings of school books, see A. N. L. Munby, “Chirm’s banded bindings” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society Vol. 1, No. 2, 1950, p. 181-186.