PUBLISHER'S INTRODUCTION. 
Ir is an old saying, and one very generally accepted, “ figures can- 
not lie.” If by this is meant that two added to two always make 
four, it cannot be denied. But, two and two do not always make 
four. Sometimes they make twenty-two, sometimes they make 
z, and sometimes they make 0, so we see that it is not the figures 
alone, but their position as well, that governs the general result. 
When Captain Bobadil proposed to exterminate an opposing army 
by kiling them off at the rate of ten every half hour; twenty an 
hour—ten hours a day, two hundred men—a hundred days, twenty 
thousand men—the figures did not lie though the Captain did. 
‘The growth of numbers under the potent spells of the arithmetician 
is something marvellous. No matter how small the profit, if the 
number of articles on which that profit accrues is only great enough, 
a fortune of any desired amount may be achieved. No better illus- 
tration of this occurs than that of book publishing. If the ordinary 
profit on a book is 25 cents, we have only to sell ten times the 
number at a profit of 5 cents, to obtain twice the income; and 
as low prices bring increased sales, here is a road to fortune. 
And so strongly did this idea take possession of one publisher in 
this country, that he attempted to:sell books at a profit of only 1 
cent apiece, in the hope that by selling millions, the aggregate 
profits would be larger than by the usual plan. Unfortunately for. 
his scheme, a profit of one cent is not difficult to wipe out. It 
does not take many spoiled copies; not many minutes wasted by 
clerks; not very much postage, to throw the balance the other way. 
At any rate the man who tried it soon found himself a. bank- 
rupt. 
Perhaps in no case is the power of multiplication and. the 
