I do not know
that anything impresses a visitor more strongly with the amount of
books sold in the States, than the practice of selling them as it
has been adopted in the railway cars.
Personally the traveler will
find the system very disagreeable - as is everything connected with
these cars. A young man enters during the journey - for the trade
is carried out while the cars are traveling, as is also a very
brisk trade in lollipops, sugar-candy, apples, and ham sandwiches -
the young tradesman enters the car firstly with a pile of
magazines, or of novels bound like magazines. These are chiefly
the "Atlantic," published at Boston, "Harper's Magazine," published
at New York, and a cheap series of novels published at
Philadelphia. As he walks along he flings one at every passenger.
An Englishman, when he is first introduced to this manner of trade,
becomes much astonished. He is probably reading, and on a sudden
he finds a fat, fluffy magazine, very unattractive in its exterior,
dropped on to the page he is perusing. I thought at first that it
was a present from some crazed philanthropist, who was thus
endeavoring to disseminate literature. But I was soon undeceived.
The bookseller, having gone down the whole car and the next,
returned, and beginning again where he had begun before, picked up
either his magazine or else the price of it. Then, in some half
hour, he came again, with an armful or basket of books, and
distributed them in the same way.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 484 of 538
Words from 128926 to 129190
of 143277
