by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut (Author)
An ancient writer-I forget his name-declared that in one of the city-states of Greece there was the rule that when any citizen proposed a new law or the repeal of an old one, he should come to the popular assembly with a rope around his neck, and if his proposition failed of adoption, he was to be immediately hanged. It is said that amendments to the constitution of that state were rarely presented, and the people managed to live under a few time-honored laws. It is possible that some such drastic treatment may yet be meted out to authors-and perhaps to publishers-as a last resort to check the flood of useless literature. To anticipate this impending constitutional amendment, it is incumbent upon every writer of a book to show that his work is needed by the world, and this I propose to do in these prefatory pages.