councils power to establish libraries in rural parishes was one among those objected to by the Local Government Board; but it will doubtless be raised again with others in the Commons, and the Association should make an earnest effort to get it passed.

Another clause of much importance must also be re-introduced, namely, that of exempting libraries and museums from rates and taxes. The Manchester Library Authority has been, and deserves to be, heartily congratulated for the fight it made on this question and the success which attended its efforts; but the action of the Inland Revenue in several small places, where the existence of a book club or the residence of a caretaker on the premises. is held to deprive the libraries of the benefit of the decision in the Manchester case, makes it imperative that the Association should do everything in its power to assist such authorities, who have quite enough to do with their limited rate without having to bear the costs of an action at law. This matter doubtless will not be lost sight of, and there are other provisions which in themselves are perfectly reasonable, but which the Local Government Board thinks it well to oppose.

To close this article without reference to the important provisions in the London Government Bill which relate to libraries would be inexcusable. When the new Act comes into operation, as it doubtless will on or about the 1st November, 1900, the new Borough Councils will be the library authorities, and where the Library Acts have not already been adopted, the Borough Councils, and not the voters, will have the power to adopt the Acts. H. W. FOVARGUE.

ROWADAYS when we speak of literature we mean novels," says one of the leading critical journals of America.

When a

librarian is asked about "new books," he may safely assume, in a great majority of cases, that the inquirer refers to new novels. Prose fiction is the accepted literary art form of the nineteenth century. It not only affords the most fascinating intellectual entertainment, but it is also the most efficient agency for insinuating all kinds of information and for directly imparting knowledge of manners and customs, and, most important of all, of human nature and the springs of human action. It is also the most available and effective medium for the expression and advocacy of every variety of opinion on all the questions of the day. It furnishes something attractive to every taste and every mood, to every age and condition of life. It makes you laugh or cry, or both at once, or suspends all but the unconscious functions of the body in the breathless excitement of a situation. There is no child who does not enjoy a good story; and the man or woman who does not marks a case of atrophy or arrested development..

It is not surprising, therefore, that about 75 per cent. of the circulation of public libraries consists of prose fiction. This is particularly to be expected in a country like the United States, where long hours and arduous labour use up the nervous forces and leave, at the close of the day, little desire or capacity for anything beyond amusement.

Such, however, is the natural human solicitude for other people's morals, that men and women who take pride and pleasure in knowing all the new novels are loud and frequent in their expressions of regret at the large percentage of fiction read in public libraries. So long as the objector is moved solely by a laudable concern for the moral welfare of his fellows, he is not a dangerous person; but when he appears as an argus-eyed taxpayer protesting against the use of public money for the purchase of storybooks, he must be hearkened to-and mollified. It would be a happy disposition of difficulties if these protestants could be set to fight it out with the more numerous "kickers," whose constant complaint is that the books they want (viz., the latest novels) are always "out." An amusing incident to this arraying of opposing forces would be the puzzle of placing the man who on Monday objected to the waste of money on novels, and on Wednesday wanted to know why more copies were not bought of a recent novel he was anxious to read. Unfortunately, the librarian stands between and receives the fire of both sides.

In the discussion of this vexed question certain general principles should be laid down and applied to its settle

ment.

1. Prose fiction of good quality is literature, and just now the most popular and prevailing form of literature. More even than the drama it "shows virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure." The great novels, and the more popular of minor novels are presupposed. It is assumed that any reference to the character-creations of Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Hawthorne, George Eliot and other leading novelists, will be understood by all persons of the least pretension to cultivation. It is, therefore, the duty of a public library, both as a popular educator and as a purveyor of elevating entertainment, to supply to the public the works of the best and the better novelists, and to supply them in quantities adequate to the demand.

Applicants for "Ivanhoe" or "Romola or "David Copperfield" should seldom be disappointed. Failing to get one of these, they are not likely to call for a better novel, or for a work on physics or the differential calculus. They are more likely to take the first novel that comes to hand, however inferior. The better novels, then, should be supplied in unlimited number. If "Vanity Fair" is repeatedly reported "out," get more copies: keep on buying more till it is nearly always "in." Better have in circulation one hundred copies each of "The Newcomes" and "Les Miserables than ten copies of each of these works and one hundred and eighty volumes of a number of inferior novels or any other books. In short, a public library should buy as many copies of the novels of good quality and perennial popularity as may be necessary to supply the demand. If the demand increases with the supply, so much the better. There is no better book than a first-class novel.

2. Conversely, it is not the office of a public library to meet the multitudinous call for the book of the hour; any attempt to do so must prove futile and in the end fatal. This fact is recognized by library managers, and no such attempt is made. But card-holders do not understand the situation; and every librarian and every assistant who comes in contact with the public must meet numerous complaints from readers who vainly call again and again for new books (chiefly novels) and "cannot see why you do not get more copies."

To meet this difficulty, to satisfy, in some measure, the eager desire of numerous card-holders for the book that everyone is talking or hearing about, the St. Louis Public Library has for years maintained a distinct department, called the "Collection of Duplicates." This collection consists chiefly of multiple copies of new popular novels. Of every book in it there is at least one copy in the regular collection. It is, as its name indicates, a collection of duplicates. A volume may be drawn from it by any

registered card-holder on payment of five cents a week. Single-issue cards are sold for five cents (2d.), cards good for five books for twenty-five cents; and for one dollar a card is furnished which entitles the holder to twenty-five volumes. A card-holder may draw as many books at one time as he may desire.

When announcement is made of a new book by an author of established popularity, such as Mark Twain or Blackmore or Besant, or of a novel by a new author with advance notices that give assurance of merit, such as "No. 5, John Street," or " Forest Lovers," two copies are ordered for the regular collection, and for the collection of duplicates as many as we feel reasonably sure will "go,”—i.e., as many as are likely to keep in circulation until they have approximately paid for themselves. Sometimes we order only one or two for the duplicate collection: in other cases we feel safe in buying ten or a dozen at the outset. If these all go out immediately, and there is still an eager demand, we buy more, gauging purchases by the probable extent and duration of the "run," and basing our judgment on the intrinsic merit of the book, on the methods of advertising, and on local interest. Perhaps I can best explain by specific illustrations.

For the first year or so after " Ben Hur" appeared two copies in the regular collection were sufficient to supply the demand. After a while religious sentiment began to find great merit in it. We put a few copies in the collection of duplicates, then a few more, then ten more, then twenty more, till finally we reached a total of fifty. These for a while were insufficient to meet the call. Later, many idle copies appeared on the shelves; but the whole lot cost the library nothing.

No book has ever had a greater "run" in St. Louis than "Trilby." In addition to the general influences three of the largest literary clubs, all meeting in church guild or lecture rooms, gave severally an evening to criticism and discussion of the novel. Of its popular