Blue-grass blade., 1895-08-25
H6w Much Bible Selling and Bible Read
ing are Done In Lexington.

One of the stock arguments of the re-
ligionists is the alleged millions of BIZ
bles that are being printed and sold. 1
am certain that a great many lies are
being told about this, by religious peo-
pie, and so I have gone today-Aug. IS
to the only two book stores in this
city to ask them about the sales of BIZ
bles.
The two book sellers here are 7. B.
Morton & Co. and VIM. Purnell.
have been selling Mrs Besant's Law
of Population" Just sixty-three days, and
I have sold 443 copies Of it, or little
over seven copies day, Sundays and
all. never asked any human being to
buy one, have no agents, and the post
office department has tried to discourage
my sale of the book and compelled me
to change my advertisement of it. l
have never in print advised anybody to
read the book, nor do recall that have
done so orally, and never say anything
about 1t to anybody unless they first
mention it to me.
These two Lexington book stores are
in a city of 10000 inhabitants, and this
city has a college that calls itself, in
large letters cut il stone over its main
entrance, 1.-THE College of the Bible" I"
There are around this city, in this very
wealthy country, about dozen nice
towns that have no book stores that
amount to anything and Lexington
pretty much sells the books for this
Blue Grass Region that contains this
dozen towns.
Invent to these two book stores in
Lexington and asked them how many
Bibles they were selling and some other
questions about the sales of Bibles.
went to them at 3 p. m. Neither OF
them had sold Bible that day, and each
of them had sold one the day before, a
Kentucky "court day" when there was
large crowd in town.
Each Of them said they thought they
sold an average of from three to five
Bibles a week; so that the two together
sell, in a week, only one more Bible than
1 sell of Annie Besant's "Law of Popula-
tion," in one day, and they are profess
sional booksellers and I am not Annie
Besant is an infdel.
These two book firms said that the
large majority of Bibles we're sold to
school children and Sunday Schools
and to the Bible students at the college
here, and that of those sold to Bible
students many of them were cheap BIZ
bles that were cut up and used in lee
lures. Both of the dealers said that,
excepting the sales just mentioned, most
of the Bibles were sold to old women,
and that but few of them were sold to
farmers.
can not now recall single instance
in my life, except one, when have seen
any person except a preacher reading
from the Bible. The exception to which
I refer was when Judge Morton read
from the ed chapter of Matthew, in de-
Tending me, when l was prosecuted for
blasphemy. The Judge seemed to be
pretty familiar with the New Testament
as far as to the end of the second chap
ter IN it; the first one being made up OF
hard Jew names.
NV Office is in the "Printery" building.
There are four stories in it filled with
editors and reporters and printers and
typesetters. There is not a Bible in
the house, nor a man to whom I can re-
fer to tell me anything in the Bible. But
you can get Tom Paine's cage of Reas.
on" and Bob IngersolIs lectures, and
Charley Moore's Rational View" here.
| never saw Bible in any printing Of
fee in this town. There is no Bible in
the Court House. or the City Hall, and !
never saw one in the Lexington City Ii
brary. Inever saw Bible in any hotel
in this town, and board in one.
Some few of the railroad cars have in
them little racks that have on them the
letters A. B. S.-for american Bible
Society,"" but have not seen Bible in
one for years. never saw book seller
on a train have Bible for sale.
think it is a safe estimate to say that
in the United States ten thousand times
as much time is given to reading news
papers as to reading Bibles.
have lately read Talmage's account
of how the people rushed to get the new
translation of the New Testament that
was made at great expense some years
since. l have never seen one of those
Testaments; do not suppose there is one
IN either Of the Lexington book stores,
or that there are six in Lexington, or
that there is one here that does not be-
long to preacher.
do not believe there are five men in
the city of Lexington who have read the
Bible through in five years. Excepting
preachers do not believe there are fifty
people in Lexington who ever read the
| Bible through, or that there are ten peo'
pie in this town who have ever read II
through in the same length OF time that
they would take to read the same
amount of ordinarily interesting profane
literature. l do not believe that, except
ing preachers, there are IS men in this
town who are IS years old who can cal
the names of all the books of the Bible
| do not believe that there are one hun