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THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
May, 1915 
FEWER AND BETTER BOOKS 
S TATISTICS show that in 1914 there were 
published in this country 10,175 new books 
of more or less substantial character, and 
1,853 new editions, a fair deduction being that 
of all the tens or hundreds of thousands of 
books published in the U. S. A. for the past 
fifty years or so, only 1,853 were deserving of 
new and revised editions. No great advance in 
the art of bookselling will come until at least a 
large part of this burden of poor and useless 
books is eliminated by the public and the 
bookseller. There will always be publishers 
to print anything they think the booksellers 
will buy. What a responsibility rests upon 
the shoulders of the bookseller, this bearer of 
literary burdens. 
STEWART EDWARD WHITE’S NEW AFRICAN BOOK 
If you are interested in exploration and tales 
of the forest and its inhabitants, Mr. White’s 
new book, “The Rediscovered Country,” will 
be a delight. He describes the last “un- 
hunted” region in the world — German East 
Africa. Among the striking stories is one of 
shooting four lions “at one standing,” so to 
speak. There are many photographs by Mr. 
White. 
RUSSIA HAS DISCARDED VODKA 
FRANCE ABSINTHE 
ENGLAND IS GETTING UP COURAGE 
The psychology of “Drink” is at the mo- 
ment rampant. Lloyd George has recently 
said that drink is more dangerous and harmful 
to England than are Germany and Austria; and 
a good many people are wondering if the United 
States will wait until war pushes her to extreme 
action on this subject. 
“the man who forgot” 
is the name of a novel just published by 
Doubleday, Page & Co., which tells the story 
of a man who, through dipsomania, lost his 
memory at the age of twenty-seven, and later 
became the great enemy of liquor in the coun- 
try. The story is based on a scientific study 
of what happens to some drunkards. This 
particular man became obsessed to do away 
with liquor throughout the whole nation by 
legislation; and how it was accomplished is 
told dramatically and effectively and makes 
you think. The author is James Hay, Jr. 
RUGGLES OF RED GAP 
is not, as one might suspect, a tale of a cowboy 
in the wild West, but the sprightly and exciting 
adventures of one Ruggles, an English valet 
of the most correct type, who was lost by his 
master in a game he calls “drawing poker” 
to an American from the grand and glorious 
state of Washington. Harry Leon Wilson, 
whose book about “Mr. Bunker Bean ” amused 
a great circle, has written of Ruggles’s experi- 
ences with a wonderfully keen wit, and we see 
for the first time in history, perhaps, what a 
perfectly good English valet with hundreds of 
years of English convention behind him thinks 
of a democracy of Western America of the 
present day. 
As to the origin of Ruggles, Mr. Wilson is 
as uncommunicative as he was in regard to his 
equally droll Bunker Bean, which took off one 
phase of American life with the same keenly 
searching, yet always good humored fun, which 
marks Ruggles. 
“The origin of Ruggles,” Mr. Wilson has 
said, “is past finding out. Perhaps he has 
germinated on some occasion when I studied 
his silent kind with frank interest and ever 
respectfully wondered what it might be think- 
ing about. Perhaps he grew from the con- 
viction that even an English valet must be 
found human if one could only explore him. 
As explorers of his own race would never by 
any chance harbor even a suspicion of this I 
was compelled to throw him among people 
who would. Hence Red Gap and a certain 
Cousin Egbert who artlessly believed from the 
very first that he was human. This is the 
sole misty basis of Ruggles, Red Gap, and all 
the rest of it.” 
A BOOKSELLING EXPERIMENT CORRESPON- 
DENCE 
We quote from a letter: 
“The writer was on a tropical island this winter, and 
a passing steamer dropped into his hands a brand new 
book called ‘Dr. Syn. A Tale of the Romney Marsh.’ 
It was hot and the writer was lazy, but he read a few 
pages to see what was the news from Romney Marsh. 
At the first sitting one half of the novel was consumed, 
when it disappeared, evidently stolen by a stronger and 
less conscientious man. This island got its news and 
its communication with the world through a lonely 
wireless, and so eager was the writer to know the ending 
of ‘ Dr. Syn ’ that he proposed to wireless to the main- 
land and telegraph to New York a hurry call for another 
copy to be sent ‘quick.’ This announcement led the 
thieving friend to return the volume (having himself 
finished it by that time). If ‘Dr. Syn’ affected one 
reader and his friends so greatly, why should it not sell 
by tens of thousands, unless the publishers are too 
stupid to tell people about it by advertising. I con- 
gratulate you on its publication, and as Dr. Syn used to 
sing: 
Here’s to the feet wot have walked the plank; 
Yo ho! for the dead man’s throttle. 
And here’s to the corpses floating round in the tank; 
And the dead man’s teeth in the bottle. 
“E. B. M.” 
We rise to reply: 
“There are, dear Mr. E. B. M., 100,000 people who 
would buy this book if they knew about it. The book 
sells for $1.25 a copy, and to advertise it sufficiently to 
induce 100,000 people to buy it we figure would cost 
perhaps $2 a copy. Our only chance to get the book 
started is to have people who, like you, have enjoyed 
it, commend it to their tired business men friends. Can 
you suggest anything further? 
“D. P. & Co.” 
E. B. M. comes back: 
“I’m busy, but I have caused the sale of many copies 
of ‘Dr. Syn.’ If you have any nerve, why don’t you 
offer to send it to any one, and tell ’em if they like it 
to send you the price; and if they don’t, to throw it 
away and no questions asked? Tell your booksellers 
to do it, too. 
“Have you got the nerve? 
“E. B. M.” 
To E. B. M. and the Public: 
We have. If the average man does not 
find interest and diversion in this quaint and 
clever story, we will gladly (no, sorrowfully) 
stand the loss. So here is our authority. Go 
to any bookseller, show him this corres- 
pondence, take the book, and ask him to 
charge the loss (if any) to us. Perhaps a few 
hundred “Dr. Syn” germs will “start the ball 
rolling.” Lacking a bookseller, use this cou- 
pon: 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO., 
Garden City, N. Y. 
Send me “Dr. Syn.” If I like it, I’ll send you the 
price; if not, I have the option of throwing it away. 
