The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-16 00:00:00

Sin,--Permit me to suggest, through your columns,
to the proprietors of commercial hotels throughout the
kingdom, as an addition to the comfort of their best
customers, to furnish the commercial room with a small
library. Boz, in his description of the commercial room,
makes it appear a very uncomfortable, because a non-
intellectual-looking place. Geoffrey Crayon, in his
sketch book, not much better. The occupants have of
a verity the best of everything the larJer can affird ;
the attendance, toa, is faultless, but, behold the com-
mercial room !—a map of the country, a framed and var-
nished printed list of the directors of the National and
Mercantile Provident Society, decorate the else bare
walls, and a hat ered Directory, is all that is to be seen
connected with letters. This is the rule—a rule with
very few exceptions. It may be advanced, that people
out crt business have no time to read books ; this, Sir,
as you will readily suppose, would be indeed a great
fallacy. Few of us are so constantly engaged through-
out the days of summer and winter but thera are hours
when to devise the best method of killing the time is a
consideration. Indeed, I venture to assert, that there
is not a sixteenth part of the commercial body who have
not sufficient spare time to dip into a volume. Granted,
that there is a sixteenth part who cannot command any
time, the remaining part possessing it, why should they
not have the means of so agreeably and profitably em-
ploying their leisure ?
It may bo again advanced, that the reading man may
either take a book with him on his journey, or, at all
events, supply himself by sending to some circulating
library in the town he may be sojourning in. It must be,
however, self-evident that both alternatives are attended
with great objections. In the first place, he who would
carry sufficient reading for his journey must fill his
portmanteau with volumes ; in the second, it is not
every country-town which boasts a circulating library ;
and fewer where books above the standard'of the Miverva
Press are kept.
.4 write this, Sir,,in one of the most popular commercial
rooms in this part of the country, allowed univesnlly
to be one of the best houses on the road, and
yet, beyond a Directory, there is not a book
in the room, whilst the Times and The Sun of
Saturday last, lying on the table, have been spelled over
and over again. We shall not receive the Times until
to-night, The Sun to-morrow morning—how desirable
a few books or magazines would be! Yesterday was
Sunday; 'twas fine, we could get out and walk; but,
Sir, all Sundays are not fine, and to be imprisoned
within four brick walls all day, with so little to fall
back upon as we in our rooms possess, is anything but
pleasant. Besides, if commercial rooms were to be pro-
vided with books, would it not be a step in the right di-
rection, in support of our country's literature?
I have hastily thrown these remarks together as sug-
gestions to the proprietors of commercial hotels through
out the kingdom; actuated also by a conviction that a
library in the commercial room is a great desideratum;
and also from the fact of the same opinion being uni-
versally entertained by the commercial men of the pre-
sent day, who may be justly called a new generation of
reading men.—ln haste yours,
A COMMERCIAL MAN.
Newark, Monday, April 13.