PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
The alterations in this Third Edition are few, and the additions are not extensive. The only subject upon which it may be necessary to offer any remark, is one which has already, perhaps, occupied a larger space than it deserves.
Shortly after the publication of the Second Edition, I received an anonymous letter, containing a printed page, entitled "Reply to Mr. Babbage;" and I was soon informed that many of the most respectable houses in the book trade inserted this paper in every copy of my work which they sold.
In the First Edition, I had censured, as I think deservedly, a combination amongst the larger booksellers, to keep the price of books above the level to which competition would naturally reduce it; and I pointed out the evil and oppression it produced. Of the numerous critics who noticed the subject, scarcely one has attempted to defend the monopoly; and those who deny the truth of my conclusions, have not impeached the accuracy of a single figure in the statements on which they rest. I have extracted from that reply the following—
