Page:The Life of the Fields, Jefferies, 1884.djvu/235

Rh tion. After the local gossip has been looked at the purchasers of these prints are sure to turn to these pieces, which serve them and theirs the most of the week to absorb. Some little traffic in books, or rather pamphlets, goes on now in rural places through the medium of pedlars. There are not so many pedlars as was once the case, and those that remain are not men of such substance as their predecessors who travelled on foot with jewellery, laces, watches, and similar articles. The packmen who walk round the villages for tradesmen are a different class altogether: the pedlar does not confine himself to one district, and he sells for his own profit. In addition to the pins and ribbons, Birmingham jewellery, dream-books, and penny ballads, the pedlar now produces a bundle of small books, which are practically pamphlets, though in more convenient form than the ancient quartos. They are a miscellaneous lot, from fifty to one hundred and fifty pages; little monographs on one subject, tales, and especially such narratives as are drawn up and printed after a great calamity like the loss of the Atalanta. It is a curious fact that country people are much attracted to the sea, and the story of a shipwreck known to be true easily tempts the six-pences from their pockets. Dream-books and ballads sell as they always did sell, but for the rest the pedlar's bundle has nothing in it, as a rule, more pernicious than may be purchased at any little shop.