ABSTRACT
W HILE I was with J. A. Hill & Company the mail-order book business all over the United States began to slide slowly and steadily into one of those abysses in which all the final figures on its financial statements were in red. When general business is rather bad the mail-order selling of books is apt to be good. Our guess was that people did not care about going out and sp~nd ing money for clothes and gayety; they felt serious a11d stayed at home and read books. So, on the other hand, years of business boom were often bad years for us. But I 907 brought one of the worst panics that ever came upon the United States. In a panic year people have no money at all to spend and the book business goes down with most of its brothers.
