h authors who can command much larger sales, find
that this year the sale of their annual novel has reached a tenth part of
the usual figures." This also is ridiculous. The general view is that,
while the season has been scarcely up to the average for fiction, it has
not been below the average on the whole. But Mr. Cooper is nothing if not
sweeping. A few days later he wrote to the _Westminster Gazette_ about the
House of Lords, and said: "I am open to wager a considerable sum that if
the Government fights a general election next year they will win back all
their lost by-elections and get an increased majority besides." Such
rashness proves that grammar is not Mr. Cooper's only weak point.

* * * * *

It is a pity that Mr. Cooper's protest was not made with more moderation,
for it was a protest worth making. The books of the two Queens have not
ruined the season, nor have they reduced the sales of popular novels by 90
per cent.; but they have upset trade quite unnecessarily. The issue of
"Queen Victoria's Letters" at six shillings was a worthy idea, but its
execution was thoughtlessly timed. The volumes would have sold almost
equally well at another period of the year. As for "Queen Alexandra's
Gift-Book," I personally have an objection to the sale of books for
charity, just as I have an objection to all indirect taxation and to the
paying of rates out of gas profits. In such enterprises as the vast,
frenzied pushing and booming of the "Gift-Book," the people who really pay
are just the people who get no credit whatever. The public who buy get
rich value for their outlay; the chief pushers and boomsters get an
advertisement after their own hearts; and the folk who genuinely but
unwillingly contribute, without any return of any kind, are authors whose
market is disturbed and booksellers who, partly intimidated and partly
from good nature, handle the favoured book on wholesale terms barely
profitable. I will have none of Mr. Cooper's 90 per cent.; but I dare say
that I have lost at the very least L10 owing to the "Gift-Book." That is
to say, I have furnished L10 to the Unemployed Fund. I share Mr. Cooper's
resentment. I do not want to give L10 to any fund whatever, and to force
me to pay it to the Unemployed Fund, of all funds, is to insult my most
sacred convictions. L10 wants earning. And the fact that L10 wants earning
should be brought to the attention of Windsor and Greeba Castles.