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Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18551, 28 November 1925, Page 15

Proof from the New York "Bookman," that America is not yet the author's paradise:—

The United States of America now yearly produces more Ford cars than babies! California is not the only American State which boasts that it has sufficient motor-cars to carry the entire population at one time. The admission tax figures show that the American people annually spend about 650,000,000 dollars for stage, motion picture, and athletic entertainment. In that mad year of 1920, in which we spent twenty-two billion dollars on luxuries, American women spent 750,000,000 dollars for face powder, cosmetics, and perfumes alone!

It is estimated that at least 50,000,000 dollars are expended country each year for the purchase of chewing gum. These commodities are obviously necessary to the life of the American people. Recently one of the great chewing gum manufacturers announced that lie has 900,000 retail outlets for the sale of his product.

Considering these stirring ami enlightening figures (the writes goes on) one is somewhat startled to learn that there are whole great States in our country in which thero is not one really big and modern bookstore. There are many States in which books are sold practically only at department and' drug stores or at newsstands. These are, of coarse, vitally important outlets. They bring bocks to people who would otherwise not think of books. It would be a splendid tiling if books were sold at every department ' and drug store and at every news-stand. Nevertheless, the absence of stores selling books alone is a illuminating commentary upon life in the States in question.

Staggering figures as to the production of books in Russia have recently been offered. How reliable these figures are is open to question. But if figures concerning editions of a million copies of titles by American writers like Jack London and Upton Sinclair; if figures concerning single publishing houses in Russia selling fifty million books yearly are to be believed, Russia must surely bo becoming the promised land for publishers and booksellers. An article in the "Publishers 1 Weekly," for May 9th, 1925, gives figures showing .that from the one German city of Leipzig, 25,365 kilograms of books are yearly shipped to 24 German and Austrian cities alone. These are very impressive figures indeed. A kilogram is a .little over .two pounds.