But books are not all that is read by that great portion of our people who have a great deal of leisure time and no sufficient means of enjoying it beyond reading. A million magazines are circulated every month, and twice as many weeklies. Some time ago the newspapers began to realize this fact, and straightway they supplemented their Saturday or Sunday editions with additional sheets containing miscellaneous reading-matter of all kinds, some of it as good as any that appears in the magazines. The worst of it is quite as good as the majority of current novels; and as the highest price of a newspaper in the United States is five cents per copy, and the supplementary sheets of some papers contain as much as an entire magazine, there is no lack of reading matter for any one who has the price of a glass of beer or a cheap cigar. Not only is the supply of printed matter great, but the demand is being increased in many ways that are entirely admirable. There are now several societies which at a very trifling cost advise people what to read, and in what order to take certain books in hand. Some of them--notably the well-known Chautauqua Society--have reading circles under advice and partial supervision which number as many people as the students of all the colleges in the country. A number of societies of similar purpose are scattered about the country, each with its list of books which its members are advised to read--books which are carefully selected by men whose literary judgment would be accepted in any intelligent circle in the Union. One result of the American avidity for reading matter is that the guild of American authors is becoming quite as numerous as that of any other country in the world. The American who does not write a book is almost a curiosity at the present time, and generally thinks it necessary to explain why he has not already done something of the kind, and when and how he would be able to do it. The stories which are published in cheap form in the United States are largely from foreign pens, but it is known to those who observe the subject closely that the number of American authors is increasing more rapidly than in any other country. Any one here who knows anything on a particular subject, or who has any reputation or prominence for any reason whatever, is asked to write a book, and such invitations are very seldom declined; for if the man cannot write, he can at least hire some one to put his thoughts into words. Men who in older countries would be ashamed to take pen in hand at all to produce anything for publication, have here received enormous compensation for single volumes on subjects with which they merely were acquainted, not those upon which they had any reason to be quoted as authority.