BACK-DATE MAGAZINES

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 78, 29 September 1930, Page 10

BACK-DATE MAGAZINES

The importation o£ back-date magazines from America was the subject of a letter ito the/Editor on Saturday last, and has brought a reply from a; New Zealand firm, which does a large business in tins connection. In a statement to . IJie Post" to-day the .firm's.representative said that there could be no menace to health through the introduction of these so-called "second-hand" magazines into the Dominion, as the books, were absolutely fresh and new. They were simply surplus stock, which had never been retailed at all, and which were obtained by his firm from the publisher, or publisher's, agent., In many cases the pages of these magazines needed cutting, and as further proof that there was nothing soiled or thumbed about them, he produced several samples. Regarding the charge that the greater proportion of the magazines imported in this fashion were of the "cheap and nasty order, it was stated that the same stones oould be had from other book shops and stalls at a dearer price. His firm simply supplied the huge public demand for these magazines, at a low rate, charging Is for three, but his firm did not deal in second-hand goods of any kind, and so naturally would have nothing to fio ■with magazines which had been read and used before being imported.