COUNTRY LITER ATU&R 233 



IV. PLAN OF DISTRIBUTION. 



When you have got your village library ready, how 

 is it to be sold? How is it to be distributed and 

 placed in the hands of the people ? How are these 

 people to be got at? They are scattered far apart, 

 and not within sound of trumpet. Travellers, indeed, 

 could be sent round, but travellers cost money. There 

 is the horse and the man to attend to it, turnpikes, 

 repairs, hotels, all the various expenses so well known 

 in business. Each traveller could only call on a cer- 

 tain number of cottages and country houses per day, 

 comparatively a small number, for they are often at 

 long distances from each other ; possibly he might find 

 the garden gate locked and the people in the field. At 

 the best after a long day's work he would only have 

 sold a few dozen cheap books, and his inn bill would 

 cover the profit upon them. Reduced thus to the 

 rigid test of figures, the chance of success vanishes. 

 But so, too, does the chance of success in any enter- 

 prise if looked at in this fashion. It must be borne 

 in mind that the few copies of a cheap book sold in 

 a day by a single traveller would not represent the 

 ultimate possible return. The traveller prepares the 

 ground which may yield a hundredfold afterwards. 

 He awakens the demand and shows how it can be 

 supplied. He teaches the villager what he wants, and 

 how to get it. He lays the foundation of business 

 in the future. The few pence he actually receives are 

 the forerunners of pounds. Nothing can be accom- 

 plished without preliminary outlay. But conceding 

 that the regulation traveller is a costly instrument, 



