11. That the Accounts of the receipts and expenditure be audited by the Corporation Auditors and printed with the general accounts of the Corporation. 12. That the Corporation Treasurer for the time being be the Treasurer ›f the Committee. The Library Committee have a separate account. 13. That the Committee do prepare a yearly Report of their proceedings in August in every year for the previous twelve months, and print the same and send a copy to each member of the Council and to the Town Clerk. Every such report shall be submitted to and considered by the Council. 14. That these regulations be subject to such alterations, variations, additions, or amendments as the Council may from time to time deem necessary. 15. That all cheques be signed by three members of the Committee and secretary, and be made upon the Treasurer. It cannot be too strongly urged upon library committees to get a constitution on the lines of the foregoing passed in the early stages of their work. Southampton claims to be the first to adopt such a course, but there is some doubt about this point. Southampton has had, since 1862, the Hartley Institution. The building, with the site on which it stands, cost upwards of £20,000, and comprises the following departments:-Circulating library, reference library, reading-room, museum, the art gallery, lecture hall, school of science and engineering (including the chemical and physical laboratories, &c., school of art, department of general literature, evening classes, and the reading-room of the Southampton Chamber of Commerce. Its work has been real and useful. But it was for many years patent that the Hartley Institution could not supply all the wants of a Public Library under the rates. The educational departments are very strong, and in every way possible the Public Library is doing all it can to help and supplement the work at the Hartley. The lending department provides books for the use of the students at the institution in the science and other classes. The subscription to the library and reading-room is half-a-guinea a year, but on a declaration being made that the income of the intending subscriber is under £200 per annum, he is let off by paying the reduced rate of 5s. 3d. annually. The council have latterly adopted the plan of allowing the inhabitants of the borough to become free borrowers from the library upon presenting a guaranty form, duly signed, according to the regulations. It is noteworthy that the council of the Hartley Institution aided the adoption of the Acts most materially, and it is a pleasure to record the fact. The Hartley Institution is well known to the writer, and there is the hope that it may have before it years of such useful work as it has accomplished in the past. In these progressive days there need be none but the most friendly rivalry and emulation among these institutions of similar aims and works. Only there is still the conviction, which becomes deeper and deeper, that for far-reaching utility, and value for money, there is none at all comparable with the rate-supported institutions. CHAPTER XII. Public Libraries in the Southern and Western Counties. T HE old adage, that " Westward the course of empire takes its way," is not yet fully exemplified, so far as this movement is concerned. Dorsetshire has one adoption of the Acts. Cornwall and Somerset have one each, and Devon is content with two. Gloucestershire boasts only of two. Wiltshire has begun its Public Library course by adding one to the number in the west. BIDEFORD. Bideford has only a very small income, and in May, 1891, a windfall came in the form of £500 from the late William Rooker. The gift is most opportune. The library committee discussed the best means of placing some permanent record of their late townsmen, and it was decided that the most fitting place either for a portrait or a bust would be the Public Library. In course of time libraries will universally become the repositories of this nature for the local worthies who pass away and leave good memories behind them. BRISTOL. The writer never enters the Bristol Public Libraries without being struck with the cosmopolitan character of the frequenters of the newsrooms and libraries. An active business man, desirous of seeing some of the many newspapers, will be in close proximity to the boys who frequent the room, and who conduct themselves in a very orderly manner. Near to them again will be some ladies quietly perusing the papers, and so throughout the rooms there is an air of public utility, which is commendable to the city of Bristol. The history of the Public Library movement in this large centre of the west is deeply interesting. In a local pamphlet, dated November, 1871, entitled "The Cry of the Poor," being a letter from sixteen working men of Bristol to the sixteen aldermen of the city, there is named as one of six pressing requirements the accommodation of a Public Library and newsroom. "We should be glad," say the petitioners, "to be able to sit in our own room and read a bit out of an interesting book to our wives and families, or to get one of the children to read to us. Such a book would keep our boys from idling at street corners, where they learn no end of mischief and wickedness, and would, maybe, prevent many of them from going to the public-house, the dancing rooms, and to the bad. We wish our children well, just as you do yours, and should be glad for them to know a great deal more, and to make a better use of what they learn than we have done, so that if they have got the ability they may not all of them always remain poor, ignorant working men Now, by the newspaper accounts, we find that Bristol is far behind such towns as Cardiff, Newport, and Hereford in this matter, to say nothing of Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, which were little villages, we are told, when Bristol merchants were giving a library and books for the use of their poor fellowcitizens. Gentlemen, though we work for our bread, we do not believe in ignorance any more than we do in bad air or in dirty skins, so we ask that Bristol may be placed under the Public Libraries Act." This request of Bristol working men practically took effect by the adoption in 1876 of the Acts in Bristol, the present chairman, Sir J. D. Weston, being president of the public meeting which sanctioned the local application of the Acts. Since that time the work has made great progress, and as Bristol dates its earliest Public Library to 1613, the city, so far as the actual work accomplished by the central library and its five branches are concerned, is determined to hold its own. The buildings comprising the central library are quite historic, and for a full account of this old structure it is a pleasure to turn to a history of the Bristol Library by the late Charles Tovey, published in 1855. This worthy Bristolian died in 1888, after seeing the fifth of the branches opened. His interest in the movement never flagged, and long before the adoption of the Acts, and down to the time of his death, he never ceased to take an interest in the work of the libraries. Mr. Tovey was as a prophet crying in the wilderness, for his little book of 1855 was received with an apathy not by any means creditable to such a city as Bristol. He says, "the citizens could not be aroused from their indifference to the advantages resulting from Public Libraries, and my book remained unsold." He was before his time, and the world will never overtake its indebtedness to the men who are in advance of their age and generation. Chiefly through his action the Town Council in 1853 appointed a committee to inquire into the subject, and negotiate with the possessors and occupants of the citizens' building, called the City Library, and now used as the central library. Thirty-five to forty years ago Mr. Tovey was told that he could do nothing with the present generation. Their habits and manners, he was considerately told, were formed, and they would not use Public Libraries and museums if they were established. The opposition came from those in high authority, and when a comparison is made with the objections raised in Bristol in 1853 to the vast use the people are now making of their libraries, the gain in the history of the movement is at once apparent. A more powerful appeal for a city or town to adopt the Acts and take under its municipal wing a library building was never penned. The whole pamphlet breathes a spirit of earnest purpose, and when Bristol gets its new central library-a consummation devoutly to be wished-the committee will see that there is placed in it a bust of Charles Tovey, and, if possible, some room or section of the library bearing the name of this warm friend of Public Libraries and their work. It is needless to remind the reader that in 1853 to 1855 the movement was a mere bantling, but even then some 遂 eleven towns had adopted the Acts, and most of the libraries were then in operation. The old building, known as the City Library, has, as already stated, a quaint history. There is no doubt that Bristol dates its earliest Public Library from 1613, and the present central library is in premises, part of which came down from that date. Additions have, of course, been made at various times, and it has now somewhat the character of a rabbit warren. But, with its old oak staircase, bookcases, and a marvellously fine old carved mantel, it is a building in which the archæologist would linger; and when the time comes for a new home for the central library, it is to be hoped that something will be done to preserve this old building as a library. Perhaps as a separate juvenile library and readingroom, and, say, a patents library, it would have its best and most appropriate use. But we have seen that Mr. Tovey had to agitate for nearly a quarter of a century before he saw the Acts adopted, and now everybody in Bristol who knows anything of the working of the libraries is asking why were the citizens so foolish as to shut themselves off from so real a boon for so many years? Other towns, especially the many towns of the West of England, may well look closely and seriously at the long struggle in Bristol, and put the question as to whether it is worth while their committing the same mistake. Taunton and Gloucester may take heart and gather strength from the experience of the capital of the west. The operations of the libraries are of a very solid nature. Each of the branches is well situated in a thickly-populated suburb, and it is noteworthy that each of these offshoots from the parent stem has surpassed in its operations the work at the central library. Very full statements of their working are sent periodically to the local press by the city librarian. As a representative month the following speaks for itself: REPORT FOR FOUR WEEKS ENDING APRIL 28, 1891. Cash taken-Central, £4 15s. 94d.; St. Philip's, £6 13s. 11d., North District, £6 8s. 7d.; Hotwells, £4 2s. 6d. Bedminster, £3 13s. 9d.; Redland, £10 13s. 10d.; The analysis of the six Libraries is as under :— BOOKS READ UPON THE PREMISES BY The visitors to magazine and newsrooms amounted to 119,000. The first of the branches which was opened-the one in St. Philip's has long ago outgrown in its work the accommodation provided, and the people in that district would like to see a new and commodious building; but the claims of St. Philip's are not so great as is better provision for a central library, convenient for city men and others who pay a large proportion of the expenses incurred in relation to the Act, but have neither reading-room nor library suitable for the centre of the city. At the central library there are a considerable number of juvenile books which are lent out to boys to read in a room by themselves. Anyone sceptical of whether boys really care for such an advantage as this would be made a convert by looking in at the room on almost any weekday evening. The boys are orderly, and require little or no supervision. They quietly go on with their reading, and this from a class of books which have been selected with great care and discrimination. The Redlands branch is the best of the branch buildings. The cost of the ground and structure was £8,000. The drain is heaviest in the lending section at Redlands of any of the branches. Some twenty-five young ladies find employment at the various Public Libraries, and give the utmost satisfaction. The Bristol committee are great believers in the humanizing power of the gentler sex in library work, and they are no doubt right. The |