COUNTRY LITEBATURE. 235 



Every circular sent to a country house will be read 

 — not slurred — and will ultimately yield a return. 

 Cottagers never receive a circular at all. If a circular 

 came to a cottage by post it would be read and re-read, 

 folded up neatly, and preserved. After a time — for an 

 advertisement is exactly like seed sown in the ground 

 — something would be done. Some incident would 

 happen, and it would be remembered that there was 

 something about it in the circular — some book that 

 dealt with the subject. There is business directly. 

 The same post that brought the original circular, dis- 

 tributing knowledge of books, can bring the book 

 itself. Those who understand the importance attached 

 by country people, and especially by cottagers, to 

 anything that comes by post, will see the use of the 

 circular, which must be regarded as the most effective 

 means of reaching the rural population. 



Next in value to the circular is the poster. The 

 extent to which posters are used in London, which 

 contains a highly educated population, is proof suffi- 

 cient of its utility as a disseminator. But in the 

 country the poster has never yet been resorted to 

 as an aid to the bookseller. The auctioneers have 

 found out its importance, and their bills are freely 

 dispersed in every nook and corner. There are no 

 keener men, and they know from experience that it is 

 the cheapest way of advertising sales. Their posters 

 are everywhere — on walls, gate-posts, sign-posts, barns, 

 in the bars of wayside inns. The local drapers in the 

 market towns resort to the poster when they have a 

 sale at "vastly reduced" prices, sending round the 

 bill-sticker to remote hamlets and mere settlements of 



