Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/479

437 W. H. SMITH AND SON. 437 papers, including between 20,000 and 30,000 copies of the Times. This scene occurs every week-day morning, but on Friday afternoon, on the arrival of the weekly papers, the bustle of business is even greater, and the parcels (those for the post only) are removed by fourteen vans sent from the General Post Office. In connection with the " Railway Libraries," it may be interesting to learn something of the publisher who has identified them with his business. Mr. George Routledge is a native of Cumberland a county, perhaps, as much as any other, famous for the com- mercial success of its natives who, after serving his apprenticeship at Carlisle, came up to London, and obtained employment in the house of Baldwin and Craddock. Soon, however, he opened a little shop of his own in Ryder's Court, Leicester Square, for the sale of cheap and second-hand books. Here, how- ever, at first he had much spare time on his hands, and he managed to procure a subordinate position in the Tithe Office. The work was not heavy, and the extra salary enabled him to increase his legitimate business. During the holiday time granted him by the Office, he made two or three journeys of explora- tion into the country, and found that a wide field existed there for a venturous and indomitable book- seller. Accordingly, he set to work to buy remainders, and having by degrees established agencies in the country, the young and almost unknown bookseller of Ryder's Court was able to compete in the auction- rooms, and generally with success, against Mr. Bohn and other influential members of the trade much to their astonishment, and not a little to their consternation. It was now time to give up the aid of the Tithe Office,