scarcely any newspaper of repute which does not enlist the aid of
fiction to attract its readers. Many of them are contented with very
poor stuff, for which they pay a proportional price; but others club
together with other newspapers--the operation has even received the
technical term of 'forming a syndicate'--and are thereby enabled to
secure the services of popular authors; while the newspapers thus
arranged for are published at a good distance from one another, so as
not to interfere with each other's circulation. Country journals, which
are not so ambitious, instead of using an inferior article, will often
purchase the 'serial right,' as it is called, of stories which have
already appeared elsewhere, or have passed through the circulating
libraries. Nay, the novelist who has established a reputation has many
more strings to his bow: his novel, thus published in the country
newspapers, also appears coincidently in the same serial shape in
Australia, Canada, and other British colonies, leaving the three-volume
form and the cheap editions 'to the good.' And what is true of fiction
is in a less degree true of other kinds of literature. Travels are
'gutted,' and form articles in magazines, illustrated by the original
plates; lectures, after having served their primary purpose, are
published in a similar manner; even scientific works now appear first in
the magazines which are devoted to science before performing their
mission of 'popularising' their subject.

When speaking of the growth of readers, I have purposely not mentioned
America. For the present the absence of copyright there is destroying
both author and publisher; but the wheels of justice, though tardy, are
making way there. In a few years that great continent of readers will be
legitimately added to the audience of the English author, and those that
have stolen will steal no more.