In order to give those outside the circle of editorial cognisance some idea of the amount of literary matter sent in by outsiders, and which falls to be adjudicated upon on its merits, we subjoin an abstract of the number of manuscripts received by us during the twelve months from August 1882 to August 1883. During that period we have had offered to us in all 3225 manuscripts, of which 2065 were contributions in prose, and 1160 in verse. These offerings varied from each other to the utmost extent both as to size and subject, from a few stanzas of verse to the bulk of a three-volume novel, and came to us from all quarters of the English-speaking world, England, Scotland, Ireland, the Continent, America, India, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. Of the 2065 prose manuscripts, 300 were accepted by us for publication, or fourteen per cent. of the whole. Of the 1160 pieces of verse, only 30 were accepted, or less than three per cent. of the total. Taking the two classes of contributions together, of the 3225 manuscripts received, 330 were accepted—that is, of every hundred manuscripts received, ten were retained by us and ninety returned to their authors. If we estimate this pile of contributions according to its bulk, and allowing a very moderate average length to each manuscript, the whole, if printed, would have filled 9125 pages of this _Journal_, or as much as would have sufficed for eleven of our yearly volumes. The lesson to be derived from this by literary beginners is, not to be over-sanguine as to the acceptance of any article offered to magazines, knowing the great competition that is constantly going on for a place in their pages. It is true that those who possess the literary faculty in a sufficient degree will, though not perhaps without suffering many rejections and disappointments, ultimately assert their claims and obtain the coveted place; but even in such cases, the early struggle may sometimes be severe and long-continued. Nor must contributors go away under the impression that all rejected offerings are necessarily of an inferior quality. This is far from being the case. Great numbers of the prose articles in the above enumeration of rejected contributions, were articles with which no fault might be found in a literary sense. But it must be borne in mind that a magazine is limited in its space; and that when a definite part of that space has been allotted to articles or tales which have been supplied under previous arrangements made between author and editor, the remaining space may afford but small room for the number of claimants thereto. An article, therefore, which is perfectly equal to the literary standard of a magazine, may have to be returned by the editor on various grounds, such as that the subject of the paper does not come within the scope of his present requirements, or that an article has already appeared or been accepted on the same subject, or that some one has been already