Page:Library Administration, 1898.djvu/85

 to the Ministry of Public Instruction. These second copies are distributed by the Minister among some 350 public libraries, according to their importance and special needs. Thus the political books go to the Arsenal Library in Paris, ecclesiastical, law, medical, and scientific books are divided among the libraries of the Faculties in these subjects, nautical books go to the libraries of the seaport towns, military books to those of garrison towns, school- books to the lycees and schools.

The net of the Acts appears to be cast as widely, and to bring in the same vast quantity of miscellaneous matter, as in this country. The French law is even more comprehensive than ours, including all printed matter, whether issued gratuitously or not, with the exception of certain classes, whereas under English law matter printed for gratuitous distribution does not come under the Act. A printed form of petition, for instance, consisting of only three lines, has been decided in the French courts to be subject to the Act, and in this instance appears the tendency which runs through the French legislation on the subject, to keep up a censorship over everything printed which is in any way intended to court publicity. It is for this reason, perhaps, that the printer has to deliver the legal copies "simultaneously with publication," whereas London publishers get a month's grace, and provincial publishers three months.

That portion of the depot legal which, at least to the present generation, is of little use in research, does not get so respectfully treated in Paris as in