Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/478

436 W. H. SMITH AND SON. of the School Board for London. It is understood that of late years a great part of the management of the business establishment has devolved upon Mr. Lethbridge, the junior member of the firm. As we have already, in our chapter on Mr. Mudie, devoted ourselves especially to the circulating library, we will endeavour here to give only a short account of the newspaper business of W. H. Smith and Son. If we walk down the Strand at four o'clock in the morning, we find the whole street deserted and dull until we reach a row of red carts, bearing the name of the firm. When, however, we enter the establish- ment by which they are waiting, all is business and bustle. The interior of the large building is, in shape, not unlike a bee-hive ; the ground-floor forms, as it were, the pit, and the two galleries the boxes, of a theatre. In these galleries nearly two hundred men and boys are already busy folding papers. At five o'clock the " dailies" begin to arrive, and the advent of the Times is hailed with a consternation of enthusiasm. The huge bundles are fiercely attacked, and folded off in a shorter time than one could imagine possible ; and then the Telegraph, Daily News, and Standard are assaulted. As soon as the folding has been partially completed, a portion of the assistants are told off to make the proper assortment for each country place, and each packer has now a boy to wait upon him, who shouts out his individual wants. At the door the carts are waiting ready to drive off with the parcels to the different railway termini, and by about a quarter to six all the first trains out of London are supplied, and in less than two hours the whole kingdom has been fed with morning news-