before he is three and twenty that long engagements are not only unnecessary but injurious and that washing the head will remove the is assured that it is not necessary to be married in two churches one being quite sufficient that there is no truth in the saying that it is unlucky to marry a person of the same complexion and that a gentle will remove rash who by the way should surely be is thus tenderly with some private views it does seem rather hard that you should be deprived of all opportunity of having a d with your owing to her being obliged to entertain other company although there are others of the family can do so still as her mother upon it and will not let you enjoy the society of her daughter you might resort to a little harmless and whenever your stated evenings for calling are broken in on that way ask the young lady to take a walk with you or go to a place of amusement she can then excuse herself to her friends without a breach of etiquette and you can enjoy your d undisturbed the photographs of lady which are received by the of most of these journals are apparently very numerous and if we may believe their description of them all beautiful it is no wonder they receive many of the following nature a rising young doctor twenty two fair with a nice house and servants being tired of bachelor life wishes to receive the de of a dark fascinating young lady of from seventeen to twenty years of age no money essential but good birth indispensable she must be fond of music and children and very loving and affectionate another doctor twenty nine of a loving and amiable disposition and who has at present an income of f a year is desirous to make an immediate engagement with a lady about his own age who must be possessed of a little so that by their united efforts he may penny fiction soon become a member of a and honourable profession how the united efforts of two young people however enthusiastic can make a man an m d or an m r c s except that love all things is more than one can understand the last advertisement i shall quote affects me nearly for it is from an eminent member of my own profession a popular author in the prime of life of an affectionate disposition and fond of home and the extent and pressing nature of whose work have prevented him from mixing much in society would be glad to correspond with a young lady not above thirty she must be of a pleasing appearance amiable intelligent and domestic if it is with the readers of penny fiction that has established his popularity i would like to know how he did it and who he is to discover this last is however an impossibility these all write nor do their works ever appear before the public in another guise there is sometimes a melancholy pretence to the contrary put forth in the answers to for example is informed that the story about which he will not be published in book form at the time he but the fact is it will never be so published at all it has been written like all its for the unknown millions and for no one else some years ago in a certain great literary organ it was stated of one of these penny journals which has not forgotten to the that its i some private views are equal to the best works of fiction to be got at the the critic who so expressed himself must have done so in a moment of which i trust was not produced by liquor for the best works of fiction to be got at the obviously include those of george black and while the novels i am discussing are inferior to the worst they are as crude and in their pictures of domestic life as they are deficient in dramatic incident they are they are dull indeed the total absence of humour and even of the least attempt at it is most remarkable there is now and then a description of the playing of some practical joke such as tying two s tails together the effect of the relation of which is melancholy in the extreme but there is no approach to fun in the whole penny library and yet it it is calculated four millions of readers � a fact which makes my mouth water like that of when mr wrote of the unknown public it is clear he was still hopeful of them he thought it a question of time only the largest audience he says for literature in this age of must obey the universal law of progress and sooner or later learn to when that period comes the readers who rank by millions will be the readers who give the who return the richest rewards and who will therefore command the services of the best writers of their time this prophecy has curiously enough been fulfilled in a different direction from penny fiction that anticipated by him who uttered it the penny papers � that is the provincial penny do now under the system command the services of our most eminent novel writers but penny fiction proper � that is to say the fiction published in the penny literary journals � is where it was a quarter of a century ago with the opportunity of comparison afforded to its readers one would say this would be impossible but as a matter of fact the opportunity is not offered the readers of penny fiction do not read newspapers political events do not interest them nor even social events unless they are of the class described in the police which i � and the fact is not without significance � does not 