Daily Tobacco Leaf Chronicle

London Booksellers

Nearly every bookdealer in London is a publisher. Consequently, if you seek a particular book it is hard to procure it at once unless you know the name and location of the publishing house. There are certain dealers-notably Hatchard in Piccadilly-who will get any book that is in print and can be got; but they require time. Go into any shop and ask for an item and the chances are nine to one that the answer will be: "No we haven't it, but we can get it for you."

In every little nine-by-four shop you hear talk about our factory." "We shall have to send down to our factory" for this article or that. This sort of thing makes even strong men very weary.

After inquiring in vain at half a dozen shops for a copy of James Whitcomb Riley's poems I made the long journey to Paternoster row and applied for the book at Longman's, the publisher. I was referred to a dealer in St. Paul's churchyard. Thither I proceeded. They were all out of the book, but could get me one. "How soon can you get it?" I asked. "In a week or ten days," they said. "Where do you have to go for it?" I asked. "To the publisher's," they answered. "My friends," said I, "I have traveled four miles for that book, and I am going to camp here till I get it. The publisher's is only one minute's walk from here—now fetch me that book!"

Very few of the second-hand book shop keepers know what they have in stock. You ask them for a certain book and they shake their heads, when the chances are that several copies of the book you want are conspicuously displayed upon their shelves. Their so called catalogues are not worth much, because they include, in most cases, only the high-priced books. The real curiosities are to be found, not in the catalogues, but upon the top and bottom shelves of the dusty stalls.-Eugene Field's Letter.