but with the growth and organization of Germania in the United States and Brazil.  There is some delicious psychology in this part of the book.  Hear the German Governor of Pennsylvania:  “As for me, I consider that if the influence of the German colonist had been eliminated from Pennsylvania, Philadelphia would never have been anything but an ordinary American town like Boston, New York, Baltimore, or Chicago.”  M. Tonnelat gives a masterly and succinct account of the relations between Germans and native races in Africa (particularly the Hereros).  It is farcical, disastrous, piquant, and grotesque.  The documentation is admirably done.  What can you do but smile when you gather from a table that for the murder of seven Germans by natives fifteen capital punishments and one life-imprisonment were awarded; whereas, for the murder of five natives (including a woman) by Germans, the total punishment was six and a quarter years of prison.  In 1906 the amazing German Colonial Empire cost 180 millions of marks.  A high price to pay for a comic opera, even with real waterfalls!  M. Tonnelat has combined sobriety and exactitude with an exciting readableness.

The Book-Buyer

[22 Aug. ’08]

In the month of August, when the book trade is supposed to be dead, but which, nevertheless, sees the publication of novels by Joseph Conrad and Marie Corelli (if Joseph Conrad is one Pole, Marie Corelli is surely the other), I have had leisure to think upon the most curious of all the problems that affect the author:  Who buys books?  Who really does buy books?  We grumble at the lack of enterprise shown by booksellers.  We inveigh against that vague and long-suffering body of tradesmen because in the immortal Strand, where there are forty tobacconists, thirty-nine restaurants, half a dozen theatres, seventeen necktie shops, one Short’s, and one thousand three hundred and fourteen tea cafes, there should be only two establishments for the sale of new books.  We are shocked that in the whole of Regent Street it is impossible to buy a new book.  We shudder when, in crossing the virgin country of the suburbs, we travel for days and never see a single bookshop.  But whose fault is it that bookshops are so few?  Are booksellers people who have a conscientious objection to selling books?  Or is it that nobody wants to buy books?

Personally, I extract some sort of a living—­a dog’s existence—­from the sale of books with my name on the title-page.  And I am acquainted with a few other individuals who perform the same feat.  I am also acquainted with a large number of individuals who have no connexion with the manufacture or distribution of literature.  And when I reflect upon the habits of this latter crowd, I am astonished that I or anybody else can succeed in paying rent out of what comes to the author from the sale of books.  I know scarcely a soul, I have scarcely ever met a soul, who can be said to make