THE ENGLISH COPYRIGHT COMMISSION. 449 



whicli minister to the craving for excitement, and are really dissipating 

 books, as there go out the grave, serious, instructive books, Ave may 

 judge what will be the proportion of demand for such books in the pub- 

 lic at large. Now let us ask what a publisher will do in face of these 

 facts. He knows what these demands are, and he has to choose what 

 books he vpill reprint. A publisher who has laid himself out for rival 

 editions is comparatively unlikely to choose one of the really valuable 

 books, which needs more circulating. I will not say he will never do it. 

 He will do it sometimes ; but he will be far more likely to choose one 

 of these books appealing to a numerous public, and of which a cheap 

 edition will sell largely. -Hence, therefore, the obvious result will be to 

 multiply these books of an inferior kind. Now, already that class of 

 books is detrimentally large : already books that are bad in art, bad in 

 tone, bad in substance, come pouring out from the press in such torrents 

 as to very much submerge the really instructive books ; and this mea- 

 sure would have the eflfect of making that torrent still greater, and of 

 still more submerging the really instructive books. Therefore, I hold 

 that, if the stimulus to rival editions acted as it is expected to act, the 

 result would be to multiply the mischievous books. 



Q. {Mr. Trollope). Do you not think that, in making the parallel 

 that you have there made, you have failed to consider the mental ca- 

 pacities of readers ? 



A. I was about, in answering the next question, to deal indirectly 

 with that ; pointing out that whUe there is a certain determining of the 

 quality of reading by the mental capacity, there is a certain range within 

 which you maj' minister more or you may minister less. There are peo- 

 ple who, if they are tempted, will spend all their time on light litera- 

 ture, and if they are less tempted will devote some of their time to 

 grave literature. Already the graver books, the instructive books, those 

 that really need circulating, are impeded very much by this enormous 

 solicitation from the multitude of books of a gossipy, sensational kind. 

 People have but a certain amount of time and a certain amount of 

 money to spend upon books. Hence what is taken of time and money 

 for uninstructive books is time and money taken away from the instruc- 

 tive ; and I contend that, if there were a diminution in the quantity of 

 the books of this sensational kind published, there would be a larger 

 reading of the really instructive books ; and that, conversely, the mul- 

 tiplication of this class of lighter books would tend to diminish the 

 reading of instructive books. I am now speaking, not, of course, of 

 the higher amusing books, because there are many that are works of 

 value, but of the lower novels, Miss Braddon's and others such. 



Q. Do you think that a man coming home, say, from his eight or 

 ten hours' labor in court day after day is in a condition to read Lyell's 

 "Geology" as men read one of Miss Braddon's novels? 



A. We are speaking of some ordinary man. No, not an ordinary 

 man, certainly. 



