The Builder, No. 1, December 31, 1842.
THE BUILDER.
PRECURSOR NUMBER.
THIRD IMPRESSION OF FIVE THOUSAND.
| No. 1.] | LONDON, DECEMBER 31, 1842. | PRICE. {Unstamped, 1½ d. {Stamped, 2½ d. |
ADDRESS.
Upon the occasion of addressing, for the first time, a particular class, and that too through the medium of a decidedly class-paper, it seems to us that the views and intentions of its conductor should be unreservedly stated. We commence, then, in the spirit that will characterize our future advocacy of the varied interests enumerated in another page. It is avowed that we enter upon this portion of the wide field of literature and science as our legitimate province, inasmuch as we were brought up, educated, and have long wrought in it; mere qualification for any undertaking is, however, but one amongst the elements of success, and unless combined with well-timed efforts, frequently disappoints the possessor:—we invite the reader to judge of the timeliness of our own by the following incident, the explanations it gives rise to, and of the result in the publication before him.
Conversing a few months since with a leading bookseller and publisher in this metropolis, we had occasion to remark upon the costly, not to say exorbitant, price of Architectural books; this fact was not disputed, and the cause at once ascribed to the smallness of the number of readers, which made it impossible it should be otherwise. We almost held up our hands in astonishment, as we repeated his words “smallness of the number of readers!” Call you five hundred thousand a small number? Can a class of half a million male adults, whom we may emphatically term all readers, and members of reading families; a class of half a million of the pick of British Artisans; a class of the highest intelligence, and (measured by their wages and numbers) highest in wealth: can we talk of the smallness of the number of readers, and assume to know any thing of this large and influential body? It was in this strain that we interrogated our friend the bookseller; it was a burst of somewhat indignant feeling, for we had long thought on the subject, and felt convinced that the fault lay, not with the reader, but rather with the writer and publisher. We have since put the case in a familiar way to other parties, as we will now proceed to do to our readers.
Suppose the Grocers, whose business it is to supply the commodities of their shops in a way suited to the daily wants of customers, were to act upon the principle of refusing to parcel out their tea and sugar, or to dispose of it in less quantities than a chest of the former, or a hundred weight of the latter; or, bringing the parallel nearer, suppose the Bakers, in dispensing the “staff of life,” were to set themselves above the standard of purveying the quartern, and half-quartern loaf; or again, that the Butcher should sell his meat in nothing less than the carcase; or that these tradesmen were to study only the palate and appetite of dainty and refined stomachs; what, let us ask, would be the condition of men of moderate means, and homely requirements? Why, just that which in regard to the food of the mind is the condition of the Working Builder.