Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/422

 410 The Library. uneasiness in the breasts of a number of writers to the local press. One of these gentlemen suggests " that one or two Protestants and an equal number of Catholic clergymen be invited to join the committee, that the present catalogue should be carefully gone over, and that the bad works should be weeded out, and a strict supervision kept over the new books purchased." AT the annual meeting of the Adelaide Circulating Library in October, a member of the committee said he had read The Heavenly Twins and " found it very painful. 3 ' No more of Sarah Grand's works will find their way into the library ; and it was announced that Zola's Lourdes was a book which was considered to be too objectionable for general circulation. MR. WILLIAM TEGG, in the Bookseller, has brought out again the well-worn argument that free libraries injure the book trade. This opinion is controverted in the same journal by Mr. Joseph Johnson, of Douglas, Isle of Man. He points out that "the introduction of machinery in factories was prophesied to be the prelude to ruin. In my younger days I have seen the streets of Manchester blocked with broken machinery torn from factories by 'hands' who imagined starvation to be only another word for machinery. A little time only elapsed before ten men were at work where only one had before been employed. And so it will be found that the change in the closing of small circulating libraries, naturally regretted by the owners, will not be without compensation if not to the owners of the libraries, to the general public. But how would the bookseller or publisher be advantaged by a creation of a taste for reading, and by the improvement of the taste, seeing that the books exercising so beneficial an influence could be read for nothing? Simply because reading creates a desire to possess the book that is read. A little while ago eminent men were engaged in naming the best hundred books. What for to put into public libraries ? No, but to form the home library. Instead of free libraries satisfying readers, there was a desire for a private library. That library would, of course, be largely made up of books of reference ; and then, as a knowledge of books increased, and their subject matter became attractive, booksellers would find their customers increased. That was not a problematical result it is a realised result. It is simply the appetite increasing by what it feeds on. This may be taken as an axiom the more readers the more buyers." MR. WALTER BESANT, in ft& Author, has the following remarks on the question, "Does the free library injure the sale of books?": "At present there are comparatively few free libraries, and their chief effect, so far, has been to place books within the reach of those who could not afford to buy them ; and this, I think, will be their effect when they are multiplied by fifty. Thus there are now in this country only about 300. It is not too much to expect that a very few years will see the free libraries, great and small, enumerated at 15,000. Almost every good book will certainly be taken by all these libraries. That is to say, good histories and biographies, good books on popular science, favourite poets, favourite novelists, will all be taken ; and really, if no other purchaser appeared, the author would not do so badly. But I believe that the present purchasers will remain. The free libraries will lend books to that enormous class whose incomes are below ^300 a year, and who cannot afford to buy books, and those who can afford to buy books will continue to do so."