THE OLD VERSUS THE NEW.

Evening Star, Issue 11824, 2 March 1903, Page 2

THE OLD VERSUS THE NEW.

The doors of all places of public resort are hung so that they open outwards. When a crowd of people, eager to make then 1 way into the street, put their weight against such a door it yields. But before the world had grown wise enough to adopt this common-sense practice a panic-stricken throng would heap themselves up like sheep, the more hopelessly blocking tho way of escape the more heavily they pushed against the door that was hung the wrong way. The old-fashioned system of publishing costly books was as awkward as a door hung the wrong way. It interposed the barrier of high prices when a book was first published, and then, after the book had, with difficulty, become known, let the door swing freely, reducing the price. • A new system of tiring the price of a book was, however, initiated by ‘The Times ’ in connection with its publication of the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica,’ and is now pursued in its issue of Tho Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia and Atlas. If a book is all that it should be, if the people who first buy it are pleased with it, it is only fair that the publishers should, draw their profits from those who come last rather than from those who come first. When a man has seen copies of ‘ The Century ’ in the houses of two or three of his friends, when he has heard these friends talk about the "book and say how useful they find it to be, he will be more ready to order a copy than he had been before he knew just what the work was. It is only fair that those who had not delayed, those who had purchased the work as soon as it was announced by ‘ The Times,’ who had shown it to their friends, and unconsciously advertised it, should find themselves in a better position than those who waited. This is your opportunity to secure a groat work on moat favorable terms. A preliminary payment of 10s, and you will get a work of 10,000 pages at 40 per cent, under publishers’ prices.