to solve. An American "professor"—(there are so many of them) spoke to me the other day in glowing terms of Andrew Carnegie. "He's cute, you bet!" he remarked, "he goes one better than Pears' Soap! Pears has got to pay for the upkeep of his hoardings, but Carnegie plants his down in the shape of libraries and gets the British ratepayer to keep them all going! Ain't he spry!"
Poor British ratepayer! It is to be feared he is easily gulled! But,—to return to the old argument—if he knew "how" to read—really knew,—he would not be so easily taken in, even by the schemes of philanthropy. He would buy his books himself, and among them he might even manage to secure a copy of a very interesting volume published in America, so I am given to understand, which tells us how Carnegie made his millions, and how he sanctioned the action of the Pinkerton police force in firing on his men when they "struck" for higher wages.
Apropos of America and things American, there is just now a pretty little story started in the press on both sides of the water, about British novels and British authors no longer being wanted in the United States. The Children of the Eagle are going to make their fiction themselves. All power to their elbows! But British authors will do themselves no harm by enquiring carefully into this report. It may even pay some of them to send over a private agent on their own behalf to study the American book stores, and take count of the thousands of volumes of British fiction which are selling there "like hot cakes," to quote a choice expression of Transatlantic slang. It is quite
