shipping paper. Here too comes the captain's wife, when her husband is away on the mighty deep, to see if his ship had been spoken or signalled. These are but straws to show the universal appreciation in which these citizens' reading-rooms are held.

The question of the supply of Government papers and other official papers to Public Libraries is of the highest importance.

In August, 1885, a deputation waited upon the late Lord Iddesleigh at his official residence in Downing-street. The ultimate result of the interview is embodied in a letter of this lamented statesman, of November 13, 1885, in which he said: "I have carefully considered the question brought before me by the deputation as to the possibility of free grants of Government publications being made to the Public Libraries. I stated at the time the objections which I saw to such a proposal, and on further consideration I remain of the same opinion. But I am glad to say I have been able to make an arrangement which, by appreciably reducing the cost to Public Libraries of purchasing such publications, will, I trust, be of considerable advantage. A contract is about to be made, under which one contractor will undertake the sale of all the Government publications published by the Stationery Office; and it is to be a condition of the contract that the accredited agents of Public Libraries are to be allowed at least 25 per cent. discount from the prices of the publications as fixed by the Stationery Office."

This important matter was further advanced, for on February 15, 1887, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that his predecessor had promised to submit a vote to the House to enable the House to decide whether a gift should be made of Parliamentary papers to Public Libraries. He would submit a vote to the House for this purpose. As each set of Parliamentary papers, only, cost about £15, he thought that the amount might be furnished by economies in the Stationery Office and a reduction in the cost of distributing Parliamentary papers. Hitherto nobody has cared to buy them, and, with few exceptions, their distribution has been confined to Members of Parliament, the bulk in the end finding their way to the paper makers as waste paper. It is reasonable to hope that their distribution to the Public Libraries of the kingdom will secure for them a wider circle of readers than has hitherto been possible, and be followed by a more thoughtful perusal and even study of their

contents.

In a letter received from the Treasury on December 8, 1889, reference is made to the debate in the House of Commons on May 14 of that year, when the vote for the Stationery Office was under discussion. It was then stated that the arrangement made a few years ago still holds good, under which applications of this nature are met within the provision of £100 made by Parliament. Each application must contain a list of the papers which the Library desires to obtain, and should be addressed to the Controller of H.M.'s Stationery Office, Storey's Gate, London, S. W.

Only those who from time to time have occasion to consult these official documents know their real value. Those who ignore the information they embody do so under an entire misapprehension of its true value. It is most desirable that ignorance on this matter should be dispelled. This can best be done by placing the papers in the Public Libraries, and thus bringing them within the reach of all in search of reliable information on the special subjects into which the reader or the student may be inquiring.

The supplying of Patent Office publications is a question of burning interest to librarians and committees. At present these are very costly, and fill up a vast amount of space, that it is in many libraries becoming a serious question, indeed, as to whether they will be able to continue obtaining them as they have hitherto done. The condition of affairs in this respect at Newcastle-on-Tyne is so thoroughly indicative of what is being felt at other places, and what has been done there summarizes the position of affairs so thoroughly, that there can be no better plan adopted than by stating what steps have been taken at the place just named. A sub-committee of the Library committee was formed to report on the supply of Patent Office publications. This committee reported in September, 1889, that they had received from the Patent Office a letter informing them that, as the bound volumes of specifications of patents could not be got ready earlier than eighteen months after the publication of the separate specifications, the Board of Trade had decided, with a view to the distribution of the specifications at the time of publication, to discontinue the distribution of these volumes, and, in lieu of them, to issue a packet of specifications every week, on the understanding that the library receiving them would undertake to bind them up at the end of every eighteen months. This letter was referred to the chairman of the Books Committee and the chief librarian presented the following report to the committee:

"We have gone carefully into the points raised in the letter by Mr. J. Lowry Whittle, of the Patent Office, dated July 24th, 1889, and report as follows:

The specifications of patents are now received in bound volumes from eighteen to nineteen months after the date of publication.

The arrangement which the Patent Office now propose will give us the specifications in parts as soon as published, which is some three weeks after the acceptance of the completed specification. A specification may be completed at the date of application for provisional protection, or at any time within fifteen months afterwards.

The Patent Office authorities undertake to make good any copies of specifica. tions which may be abstracted, lost, or damaged prior to the binding of the volumes.

The proposed change will involve our appointing a London agent to collect the specifications weekly, and to dispatch the same to Newcastle. If this be necessary, Messrs. H. Sotheran & Co. have offered to act for us at an annual charge of £1 1s. Od.

We shall need 150 cardboard boxes for storing and administering the specifications prior to their being bound. The boxes will cost 2s. 6d. each, altogether £18 158. Od.

It will be necessary to bind from 90 to 100 volumes of specifications annually. The estimated cost of each, in half linen buckram guarded, will be about 3s. 6d.,

or an annual cost of from £15 15s. Od. to £17 10s. Od.

The total estimate of preliminary cost will, therefore, be £20 5s. Od., and the estin.ated annual cost about £20.

The grant of patent specifications was made to the Corporation of Newcastle. We have not been able to ascertain the date, but we are informed that they were deposited by the Corporation with the Literary and Philosophical Society not less than 40 years ago. The Corporation paid the Literary and Philosophical Society the cost of binding and of carriage. In eight years from 1859 to 1867-the amount thus paid for binding was £232 16s. 4d.

In 1882 the Literary and Philosophical Society required the room which the patent specifications occupied, and they were transferred to the Public Library: but they did not become the property of the Public Library, as they had not been the property of the Newcastle Corporation. The Government maintained the right of withdrawing the grant at any time, and recalling the volumes.

Whilst it is right and fitting that books such as these which the Corporation receive from Government for the benefit of the entire community should find room at the Public Library, it is not right that the Public Library should be charged with expenses for them which a private library was not charged with when it took care of them.

We have noted that the
They are not books which the Public Libraries Committee would be likely to
purchase if the Corporation did not provide them.
Government may recall them. They are open to reference by any person who
wishes it free of all charge. They are in the Public Library as a convenience to
the public not only of Newcastle and neighbourhood, but of the whole of the
surrounding country. The nearest places to Newcastle where complete sets of
these publications can be consulted are Edinburgh or Glasgow in the north,
Liverpool or Manchester in the west, and Leeds in the south.

There is no reason whatever why the finances of the Public Library should be
burdened with any payments for these specifications; but, on the other hand,
they should not have been required to make any payments during the past seven
years. They have simply acted for the convenience of the Corporation in the
matter, and if it is placed fully and clearly before that body it cannot be doubted
In 1857, 65 volumes of patent specifica-
that that body will see the justice and propriety of acknowledging its responsibility.
The matter is a very important one.
tions were published, and each of these contained about 50 separate specifications,
In 1867, 94 volumes were published, giving a total of 4,700
giving a total of 3,250.
specifications. In 1877, 50 volumes, each containing about 100 specifications, or a
total of 5,000; and in 1887, 91 volumes, each containing about 200 specifications,
or a total of 18,200. It will thus be seen that there are more than five times as
many specifications published now than there were thirty years ago.

It may appear somewhat unjust that Newcastle should be called upon to defray
the whole of the charges for these patent specifications; but we must remember
that this is one of the consequences of the position of our city as the metropolis of
the district. If, however, the finances of the Public Library, which are already so
meagre, are to be burdened by the payments we have mentioned, the General
Committee will have very seriously to consider whether it is justified in agreeing
to the change which the Patent Office proposes. The Commissioners of Patents
seem to be acting under the instructions of the Board of Trade, and it will probably
not be possible to get the specifications in any other form than that which is now
proposed. We suggest at the same time that negotiations should be opened with
the Patent Office so as to ascertain how far it can be induced to undertake that, if
the grant be recalled, it will reimburse the Corporation or other persons who may
pay for the cost of binding; and how far it is possible to induce it to undertake
the binding itself. It may be that this could not be done without considerable
agitation and difficulty; but when the large and accumulating profits which are
in the hands of the Patent authorities are borne in mind, and it is remembered
that these profits spring out of the patents themselves, and that the object of
circulating the specifications is to encourage the taking out of patents, and so to
increase the fund we have mentioned, it cannot be denied that it would only be
fair if all the expense of that which is practically the best advertisement of the
Patent Office were borne by the Patent Office itself."

This matter of the Patent Office publications now stands thus: The Patent Office decided to continue the grant, and Newcastle and other libraries receive weekly parcels of these publications, so that inventors and others interested in this form of publication are practically as well off for purposes of consultation as if they were at the Patent Office in London. The Newcastle Corporation, being impressed with the fact that these publications did not come exactly within the sphere of the Public Libraries to provide for, other than as administrators, have generously undertaken to

pay for all boxes, binding and carriage, thus relieving the Library of an initial expenditure of about £25, and an annual charge of about £15. Other library committees should endeavour to get from their corporation a similar concession.

The Patent Office has such an enormous annual revenue that it is not an unreasonable request to make on behalf of these libraries that they shall be regularly supplied with specifications free from all expense, as well as the "Patents' Journal."

Gifts of books and pamphlets come from publishers, authors, and public bodies. One library received from the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury-Calendars of State Papers, &c., eighteen volumes; Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages, sixty volumes; and the publications of the Record Commissions, &c., seventeen volumes, the value of which was £53 8s. 6d. The Agents-General of the Colonies send books and pamphlets, and the Cobden and other clubs do the same. The American Bureau of Education, Washington, and other institutions on the other side of the Atlantic sometimes send copies of works to Public Libraries in this country. There are occasional distributions of duplicate copies of books by the British Museum, but these are now in all cases given only to rate-supported libraries. The Clarendon Press at Oxford, and other institutions, make grants of books to Public Libraries.

CHAPTER V.

Early Public Libraries.

HE kings of old were wise in their day and generation. They were not slow to recognize that it was politic to turn the popular mind from merely political theories to books. The pleasures of imagination which all might enjoy through the channel of a library were a famous antidote for political disaffection, and it was probably, therefore, not altogether a love of literature that made the Roman Emperors reckon manuscripts amongst the most valued of their spoils of war, or to estimate them even more highly than vessels full of gold. All the literary treasures of the nations they conquered were sure to find their way to Rome. Julius Cæsar proposed to open to the public the magnificent library upon which had been lavished the opulence of Lucullus and of which Plutarch speaks in the highest terms. The daggers of Brutus and his companions nipped the project in the bud. But the emperors who followed were as enthusiastic as the great Cæsar in the cause of Public Libraries, and even called those they established after their own names. As a matter of course the Imperial despots spared nothing that would add to the magnificence of their literary hobbies. Thus, we read of marble floors, walls covered with glass and ivory, and shelves of ebony or cedar. Just as men of a later period thought nothing too costly to bind

or ornament the books they loved, or as the plutocrat of to-day will lavish his gold as freely on yards of well-bound literature for which he really cares no more than he does for some work of art of the painter's skill which has cost him thousands. Still, the fact remains that from the earliest times the great men of the earth invariably turned their attention first to the collection of books and manuscripts, and next to taking care that the people should have free access to them.

In the old days, when King John was trying to impose his rule on his somewhat turbulent subjects, and, indeed, for two or three decades afterwards, libraries hardly existed. The borrowing of a volume was a serious concern in those days, and heavy was the pledge or the bond required for the loan. One of the regulations of the library of the Abbey of Croyland, Ingulphus has given. It regards the "lending of books, as well the smaller without pictures as the larger with pictures, any loan is forbidden under no less a penalty than that of excommunication, which might possibly be a severer punishment than the gallows." Books were rare and precious things with the learned and rich, and Public Libraries were totally unknown during that period.

The Library of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, is a very interesting feature of that University town. Although most of the sights at Cambridge are free to the visitor, and great the liberty she allows to those who visit her, she, too, has her sacred places whither not all may penetrate. Such, for the most part, are her libraries. Perhaps this conservatism is an inheritance from mediæval times, when books too often proved an irresistible temptation, and gave rise to much grave abuse and scandal. Modern times are not free from a like reproach. So it may

have been either prophetic insight or consciousness of the peccadilloes of his contemporaries, which led Archbishop Parker to frame the stringent rules under which the library is held by Corpus Christi. His intimate connection with this college, of which he became Master in 1544, is suitably marked by this bequest of the greatest of all his treasures. Some little account of the restrictions he imposed on their use may be of interest. Two persons must always be present before any volume can be consulted: one Master or Fellow of the College, the other Fellow or Scholar. Should longer use of the books be necessary, they may be removed to one of the Fellows' rooms, not more than three at a time, and after due registration. Beyond the College buildings they must never go. A system of duplicate keys to the bookcases affords security that these instructions be observed. The Archbishop's will provides that if six folio or an equivalent number of smaller volumes be lost, the entire collection, together with the plate he also bequeathed, shall pass to Caius. Should they in turn lose as many more, it travels to Trinity Hall; a third like loss, and what remains returns to Corpus. For smaller lapses than these, fines are imposed, no doubt heavier in the Archbishop's day than they seem now. Once a year the Masters of Caius and Trinity Hall, together with two Scholars of Corpus,