But the specific evils of such a system are numerous. In the first place, it prevents the editor from standing on a proper footing towards his contributors. Many a man who is not so engrossed with business but that he can _afford_ to write for nothing, would nevertheless find an occasional payment of forty or fifty dollars a very timely addition to his income, and would prefer that way of making money to many others. But, in comparison with the editor, he appears positively a rich man, and as such is ashamed to ask for any pecuniary recompense. He feels, therefore, as if he were doing a charitable and patronising, or at least a very friendly act, in contributing, and will be apt to take less and less trouble with his contributions, and write chiefly for his own amusement; while the editor, on his part, does not like to run the chance of offending a man who can write him good articles occasionally, and feels a delicacy about declining to insert whatever the other writes. Next, it often stands in the way of honest criticism. Men can be paid in flattery as well as in dollars, and the former commodity is more easily procurable than the latter. If the editor eulogises the author of "---- and other Poems," as at least equal to Tennyson, there is a chance that some of the "other poems," may come his way occasionally. Of course, if he were able and willing to pay for good articles, he could always command the services of good contributors, and need not stoop to so unworthy a practice.