e, it need hardly be pointed out that reprehensible
methods of this kind are uniformly condemned among all respectable
publishers and book-dealers, and that buyers should cautiously
discriminate against those who practice them. It is not surprising
that even the honest publishers and dealers themselves are
occasionally made the scapegoats of these obnoxious parasites; but the
astute collector is rarely "caught" by their schemes; and after a
book-buyer has passed the primary or "experience" stages of
book-collecting, he (or she) is designated as a "dead one," in the
common parlance of the underground trade here referred to. Fortunate,
indeed, are the bibliophiles who have passed unscathed into the
category of "dead ones."

That my present condemnatory observations are not directed against
that great majority of publishers, booksellers, and agents whose
methods in business are founded upon sincerity and integrity, will, I
take it, be clearly understood; and I am, indeed, forced partially to
disagree with Mr. Joline in his vigorous and general proscription of
"subscription book-agents," for experience shows that there are many
worthy people of this class, however much they may suffer by the sins
of some of their kind. An acquaintance once said to me that he would
"_never buy another book_," because he had been "buncoed" by a
book-agent, to whom he otherwise referred with an uncomplimentary
adjective. But this did not convince me that his position was more
logical than that of the man who declared he would never take another
bath because a watch had been stolen from his pocket while he was in
bathing at some beach resort. It is incomprehensible that any one
could imagine that our paper currency system is fraudulent because
there are a few "green-goods" men in the country, or because
counterfeit bills appear every now and then.

We read so much in the papers nowadays of the extravagant sums paid
for rare books by our modern millionaire bibliomaniacs that one is apt
to become somewhat panic-stricken upon experiencing the first symptoms
of the bibliomania. While these more opulent victims of book-madness
vie with one another in the auction-room, the rational bibliophile
sits in the gallery and views with silent awe and amazement the
scrimmage over some apparently trifling volume that wouldn't fetch ten
cents, but for the fact that it is "unique," and that so and so paid a
stupendous sum for it at some previous sale. Despair