Firms in Berlin have a special way of dispatching their books, etc., to other firms in the country. It is a kind of private post service between the Booksellers' League in Berlin and booksellers and wholesale agents in other towns. Each member of this League pays a certain amount yearly, and has his goods sent on by the private post service. This is not a very quick method, although it is cheap. The following Consular Report upon this subject will be found interesting:-- Even in this changing age the organization of the German book trade remains in principle what it has long been. The two main principles which make the trade as flourishing as it is, are the fixed selling price and the right of the retailer to return unsold books. The first, combined with very long credits, is the solid basis of the existence of the small retail houses, and has favoured the establishment of retailers everywhere. There is in Germany one bookseller for every 5,000 inhabitants, and the consequence of retail shops being found everywhere is that the German publisher spends very little in advertising, for he sends out all his novelties on sale according to a system established with the retail trade, or special wishes of the retailers, which he learns by means of his inexpensive circulars. In no other trade is there so close an understanding cultivated as between the German bookseller and his educated customers. The retailer circulates all his new books amongst likely buyers, and they become better known than through advertisements. The retailer pays for all the books bought during the year at the Easter Fair of the following year. The discounts vary according to the class of book, from 25 per cent. on the selling price of scientific books to 40 and even 50 per cent. on juvenile literature, besides which eleven copies are sent for ten, or thirteen for a dozen. The enormous number of scientific books published in Germany, including pamphlets, can only be explained by the existence of the intelligent retailers all over the country. The legal organization of the trade is the Verein in Leipzig, consisting of 2,685 members, which lays down regulations for the members of the trade amongst themselves, and for them in their dealings with the public. Thus the maintenance of the selling price (5 per cent. being allowed for cash, periodicals excepted) is rigidly insisted on, and if the rule is broken, it is adjudged by the Verein that publishers shall not supply the offender, or that they shall give him no credit or discount. Connected with this institution is a sort of publishers' and booksellers' clearing house in Leipzig, by which the ordering by retailers and the keeping of accounts between them and the publishers are facilitated and simplified, and the processes of ordering, packing, dispatching, and paying are greatly cheapened. It appears designed to prevent a great variety of petty expenditure, and