Interesting comments on familiar themes from 1896. The effect of big box 
retailing and the demise of reading.

"Thurston's" was a place concerning which opinions differed in Octavius. 
That it typified progress, and helped more than any other feature of the 
village to bring it up to date, no one indeed disputed. One might move 
about a great deal, in truth, and hear no other view expressed. But then 
again one might stumble into conversation with one small storekeeper 
after another, and learn that they united in resenting the existence of 
"Thurston's," as rival farmers might join to curse a protracted drought. 
Each had his special flaming grievance. The little dry-goods dealers 
asked mournfully how they could be expected to compete with an 
establishment which could buy bankrupt stocks at a hundred different 
points, and make a profit if only one-third of the articles were sold 
for more than they would cost from the jobber? The little boot and shoe 
dealers, clothiers, hatters, and furriers, the small merchants in 
carpets, crockery, and furniture, the venders of hardware and household 
utensils, of leathern goods and picture-frames, of wall-paper, musical 
instruments, and even toys—all had the same pathetically unanswerable 
question to propound. But mostly they put it to themselves, because the 
others were at "Thurston's."

The Rev. Theron Ware had entertained rather strong views on this 
subject, and that only a week or two ago. One of his first acquaintances 
in Octavius had been the owner of the principal book-store in the 
place—a gentle and bald old man who produced the complete impression of 
a bibliophile upon what the slightest investigation showed to be only a 
meagre acquaintance with publishers' circulars. But at least he had the 
air of loving his business, and the young minister had enjoyed a long 
talk with, or rather, at him. Out of this talk had come the information 
that the store was losing money. Not even the stationery department now 
showed a profit worth mentioning. When Octavius had contained only five 
thousand inhabitants, it boasted four book-stores, two of them good 
ones. Now, with a population more than doubled, only these latter two 
survived, and they must soon go to the wall. The reason? It was in a 
nutshell. A book which sold at retail for one dollar and a half cost the 
bookseller ninety cents. If it was at all a popular book, "Thurston's" 
advertised it at eighty-nine cents—and in any case at a profit of only 
two or three cents. Of course it was done to widen the establishment's 
patronage—to bring people into the store. Equally of course, it was 
destroying the book business and debauching the reading tastes of the 
community. Without the profits from the light and ephemeral popular 
literature of the season, the book-store proper could not keep up its 
stock of more solid works, and indeed could not long keep open at all. 
On the other hand, "Thurston's" dealt with nothing save the demand of 
the moment, and offered only the books which were the talk of the week. 
Thus, in plain words, the book trade was going to the dogs, and it was 
the same with pretty nearly every other trade.

The Damnation of Theron Ware, Harold Frederic

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