A.D. 1846.]

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cipal stations. Sometimes they had been started by the enterprise of local booksellers, who generally combined a display of refreshment for the body with that of food for the mind. Newspapers and novels were ranged in amicable jumble with beer-bottles, sandwiches, and jars of sweets. No regulations controlled the privilege of selling on railway platforms, and miscellaneous vendors pushed their humble trade at their own pleasure. Then the railway companies began to find bookstalls a convenient means of providing occupation for men disabled, or for the widows of men killed, in their service; and in the early days of railway travelling, when the longest stretch of rails was no more than thirty miles, and nobody wanted more than a newspaper to while away the journey, this answered all that was required. But, as journeys lengthened and travellers. multiplied, more copious literature came in demand, and it is not surprising that complaints began to be heard that the people who were allowed the privilege of supplying it were often illiterate, and almost always untrained to the business.

Another objectionable feature soon became manifest: to supply the demand of travelling readers, dealers furnished their stalls with literature of indiscriminate character. Cheap French novels of the shadiest class, and mischievous trash of every description which no respectable bookseller would offer, found purchasers; indeed, it became notorious that some people sought for and found on railway stalls books that they would have been ashamed to inquire for from tradesmen with a character to lose. Attention was called to the disreputable nature of this traffic by letters to the newspapers, and the directors of the principal railways, recognising the necessity for its regulation, began to advertise for tenders for the rent of stalls on their stations.

In this hitherto unpromising soil young Smith was not slow to discern the prospect of a rich harvest; but in opening negotiations with the railway companies for the right to erect bookstalls, he had to encounter his father's opposition, who was disinclined to go beyond what he looked on as the legitimate business of the firm-the circulation of newspapers and sceptical as to the profits to be derived from bookselling, pointing to the ill success of private adventurers in that line. Howbeit, the young man ultimately got his own way, and the first decisive step in the course, which he had initiated by buying up the ventures of local men on liberal terms, was accomplished when he concluded a lease with the London and North-Western Railway Company, giving the firm exclusive rights for the sale of books and newspapers on their system.

The companies, naturally concerned more about the profits of their shareholders than about the morals or mental development of their passengers, paid more regard to the amount offered in the tenders than to the respectability of the tenderers; consequently the quality of the wares offered by Smith & Son at the London and North-Western stations soon came into favourable contrast with that of the salesmen on other lines. An article which appeared in the 'Times' of 9th August 1851 brings this out so clearly, and throws so much light on the principles on which Messrs W. H. Smith & Son started and maintained their new business, and the vast advantage which it was the first to ensure to the travelling public, that it may be permitted to make somewhat lengthy extracts from it. After dwelling on the revolution effected by railways in social habits, the writer went on to say :

...

Men cannot move their bodies and leave their minds behind them. When disciples are restless, philosophers must needs be peripatetic. Are we turning this rushing aud scampering over the land to real advantage? Is the most made of the finest opportunity yet

A.D. 1851.]

RAILWAY LITERATURE.

31

offered to this generation for guiding awakened thought and instructing the eager and susceptible mind? . . . Could it be possible that the conductors of our railways, all powerful and responsible as they are, had either set themselves, or permitted others to establish on their ground, storehouses of positively injurious aliment for the hungry minds that sought refreshment on their feverish way? Did they sell poison in their literary refreshment-rooms, and stuff of which the deleterious effects twenty doctors would not be sufficient to eradicate? We resolved to ascertain at the earliest opportunity, and within a week visited every railway terminus in this metropolis. It was a painful and humiliating inspection. With few exceptions, unmitigated rubbish encumbered the book-shelves of almost every bookstall we visited, and indicated only too clearly that the hand of ignorance had been indiscriminately busy in piling up the worthless mass. The purchasers were not few or far between, but the greater the number, the more melancholy the scene. Were all the buyers

daily travellers? Did they daily make these precious acquisitions? If so, it was a dismal speculation to think how many journeys it would take to destroy for ever a literary taste that might have been perfectly healthy when it paid for its first day ticket.

...

As we progressed north, a wholesome change became visible in railway bookstalls. We had trudged in vain after the schoolmaster elsewhere, but we caught him by the button at Euston Square,1 and and it is with the object of making him less partial in his walks that we now venture thus publicly to appeal to him. At the NorthWestern terminus we diligently inquired for that which required but little looking after in other places, but we poked in vain for the trash. If it had ever been there, the broom had been before us and swept it clean away. When the present proprietor of the Euston Square book-shop acquired the sole right of selling books and newspapers on the London and North-Western Railway, he found at the various stations on the line a miscellaneous collection of publications of the lowest possible character, and vendors equally miscellaneous and irresponsible. . At one fell swoop the injurious heap was removed. At first the result was most discouraging. evident check had been given to demand; but as the new proprietor was gradually able to obtain the assistance of young men who had been educated as booksellers, and as public attention was drawn to the improvement in the character of the books exposed for sale, the returns perceptibly improved, and have maintained a steady progressive increase greatly in excess of the proportion to be expected from the increase of travelling up to the present time. Unexpected revelations came forth in the course of the inquiry. It has been remarked that persons who apparently would be ashamed to be found reading certain works at home, have asked for publications of the worst character at the railway bookstall, and, being unable to obtain them, have suddenly disappeared. Cheap literature is a paying literature, if judiciously managed. A host of readers are

An

1 The terminus of the London and North-Western line, where Messrs Smith & Son had erected bookstalls.

springing up along the lines of rail, and imitators of the NorthWestern missionary will not long be wanting at every terminus in the kingdom. Railway directors will find it their interest no less than their duty to secure the co-operation of intelligent men, and bookstalls will crave for wholesome food, which our chief purveyors must not be slow to furnish.

In this great work of purifying the sources of information and amusement, it must not be supposed that the "NorthWestern missionary" was acting solely upon principles of self-interest. There was plenty of demand for the kind of literature which he was determined to discourage. It is on record that already as much as £600 had been paid as the annual rent of a bookstall at a London terminus, and the profits accruing from the old traffic were jeopardised by a sudden change.

It cannot have been an easy matter to compile an Index Expurgatorius. From first to last, letters came in from correspondents indignantly complaining of the profligacy of some of the books sold. Thus in 1853 a gentleman wrote expressing surprise that Byron's 'Don Juan' was on sale at some of the stations, calling upon Smith to prevent "such a vile book as that to pollute his stalls," and indicating his intention to follow up this letter with another on the subject of Alexandre Dumas' novels. As late as 1888 Smith was reproached by another correspondent for allowing the 'Sporting Times' to be exposed for sale.

There was, besides, more than the custom of the trade and a depraved public taste to be overcome in setting the bookstall business going: young Smith had also, in this matter, an enemy of his own household, for this branch of the business never, from first to last, found favour in old Mr Smith's eyes. Often, so long as he continued to visit the Strand, when he saw a pile of books in the counting-house, he would gruffly order their removal, or

if he met a man carrying a parcel of them, he would ask him what he meant "by bringing such rubbish into my premises."

It is surprising how soon the son's quiet confidence succeeded in establishing the bookstall business. Besides acquiring the monopoly on the London and North-Western system, he continued to extend his operations on other lines of railway, and wherever he had an opportunity, bought up the local man, who was often glad to be let out on easy terms. The railway companies and the public soon became familiar with the bookstalls of W. H. Smith & Son, and the business became so extensive, that in 1849, only three years after its creator had entered the firm, it became necessary to appoint separate departmental managers.

From this humble beginning there took its rise what must now be looked upon as a great institution. At first, each bookstall clerk had to make a weekly return to the head office of every book sold of one shilling and upwards in value; it often happened that one such list was easily written on half a sheet of notepaper. But once started in the hands of a powerful firm, and concentrated under control of a competent manager, the enterprise, which had proved so disastrous to many isolated local traders, began to advance by leaps and bounds. One after another

It

the great railway companies ceded to Smith & Son the exclusive right to erect bookstalls at their stations. was not easy to meet the requirements of such sudden expansions as were caused by acquiring the whole of the London and South-Western system about 1852, that of the London and Brighton a few years later, and that of the Great Western in 1862. To man and supply with literature so many new stations involved taking on an immense number of new hands, as well as considerable capital expenditure. But the junior partner had a quick

C