To begin with, it may be fairly assumed--seeing that the staple commodity of each one of the five journals before me, is composed of Stories--that the Unknown Public reads for its amusement more than for its information. Judging by my own experience, I should be inclined to add, that the Unknown Public looks to quantity rather than quality in spending its penny a-week on literature. In buying my five specimen copies, at five different shops, I purposely approached the individual behind the counter, on each occasion, in the character of a member of the Unknown Public--say, Number Three Million and One--who wished to be guided in laying out a penny entirely by the recommendation of the shopkeeper himself. I expected, by this course of proceeding, to hear a little popular criticism, and to get at what the conditions of success might be, in a branch of literature which was quite new to me. No such result rewarded my efforts in any case. The dialogue between buyer and seller always took some such practical turn as this: _Reader, Number Three Million and One._--"I want to take in one of the penny journals. Which do you recommend?" _Enterprising Publisher._--"Some likes one, and some likes another. They're all good pennorths. Seen this one?" "Yes." "Seen that one?" "No." "Look what a pennorth!" "Yes--but about the stories in this one? Are they as good, now, as the stories in that one?" "Well, you see, some likes one, and some likes another. Sometimes I sells more of one, and sometimes I sells more of another. Take 'em all the year round, and there ain't a pin, as I knows of, to choose between 'em. There's just about as much in one as there is in another. All good pennorths. Bless your soul, just take 'em up and look for yourself! All good pennorths, choose where you like!"