4 FEBRUARY 1871, Page 13

HOW TO DEFEAT BOOK-CANVASSERS.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

SIR,—I have just read your paragraph as to book-canvassers and their tricks, and I fancy some of your readers may perhaps like to know that in two instances of artizans, patients of mine, the trick was easily defeated. They found that, while intending to take only a specimen part, they had really put themselves down as subscribers to a whole work, which threatened to extend over at least two years. I advised them to say when the next number was de- livered that, as they had contracted for the whole work, when it was complete they would then pay for it, but to decline paying for it part by part. The agent never troubled them any more.—