Let us run, as rapidly as possible, through a few of the pleas set up by the advocates of this form of municipal socialism. Good books, it is said, are out of the reach of the working man. Whether this is true as regards books we shall see, but obviously it would be easy to make out a much stronger case for many other forms of amusement which are far more popular with the million than books; yet no one seriously proposes that the amusements of the poorer classes can _all_ be supported by the rates. But a glance down the lists of some of our publishers will show any one that the statement is not true--is the very reverse of truth. When books like 'Pilgrim's Progress,' 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' 'Rasselas,' 'Paul and Virginia,' Byron's 'Childe Harold,' 'Lady of the Lake,' 'Marmion,' and others, can be purchased from Messrs. Dicks at twopence each; when all Scott's novels can be obtained from the same publishers for threepence per story; when, from the same source, any of Shakespere's plays can be got for a penny each, it will not do to say that the best kind of literature is unpurchasable by a class that spends millions a year on alcohol, as well as thousands on tobacco and other luxuries. Three or four pence, which even comparatively poor people think nothing now-a-days of spending on an ounce of tobacco or a pipe, will buy enough of the best literature to last an ordinary reader at least a week or a fortnight. And when the book is read, there is the pleasure to be derived from lending or giving it to a friend, and of accepting the loan or gift of his in return; a custom that largely obtains in country districts where no socialistic collection of unjustly gotten books exists to hinder the development of personal thrift or poison the springs of spontaneous generosity. Lying on the table where this is written is a list of the works published in Cassell's National Library. How some of the old book-lovers who are gone--who lived in the days when the purchase of a good book involved some personal sacrifice--would have appreciated this valuable library! Here are 208 of the world's best books, each one of which contains some 200 pages of clear readable type. The published price is threepence each; but a discount of twenty-five per cent. is allowed when four or five or more are purchased. It would be a waste of space to give the entire list; but a few typical examples may be taken. Here are the Essays of Lord Macaulay; here are works by Plutarch, Herodotus, Plato, Xenophon, Lucian, Fénelon, Voltaire, Boccaccio, Gothe, and Lessing--in English, of course. Here is Walton's 'Complete Angler,' Goldsmith's 'Plays,' Bacon's 'Wisdom of the Ancients' and 'Essays.' Here are works by Burke, Swift, Steele and Addison, Milton, Johnson, Pope, Sydney Smith, Coleridge, Dickens, Landor, Fielding, Keats, Shelley, Defoe, Dryden, Carlyle, Locke, Bolingbroke, Shakespere, and many others. All Shakespere's plays