le position from a very humble beginning without the aid of
either Free Libraries or Free Schools:--

Not long ago a conference of working men was held at Salford
to consider the question of rational amusement, when, in
reply to a series of questions, it was stated that Free
Libraries were not the places for poor, hard-working men,
who had social wants which such libraries could not gratify.
It was argued that people who went to work from six in the
morning till six at night did not want to travel a mile or
so to a Free Library. Music, gymnastics, smoking and
conversation rooms, and other things were suggested, but in
summing up the majority of replies, it appeared that
amusement rather than intellectual improvement, or even
reading, was what was most wanted by men after a hard day's
toil. This appears to have been realised in the erection,
according to Mr. Besant's conception, of the Palace of
Delight in the east end of London.

The truth is that a Free Library favours one special section of the
community--the book-readers--at the expense of all the rest. The
injustice of such an institution is conspicuously apparent when it is
remembered that temperaments and tastes are as various as faces. If one
man may have his hobby paid for by his neighbours, why not all? Are
theatre-goers, lovers of cricket, bicyclists, amateurs of music, and
others to have their earnings confiscated, and their capacities for
indulging in their own special hobbies curtailed, merely to satisfy
gluttons of gratuitous novel-reading? A love of books is a great source
of pleasure to many, but it is a crazy fancy to suppose that it should
be so to all. If logic had anything to do with the matter we might
expect to hear proposals for compelling the attendance of working men at
the Free Library. But surely in this nineteenth century men might be
trusted to choose their own amusements, and might mutually refrain from
charging the cost thereof to their neighbours' account. This pandering
to selfishness is bad for all parties, and doubly so to the class it is
specially intended to benefit.

The following imaginary dialogue will perhaps serve to show the inherent
injustice of literary socialism.

_A_ and _B_ earn _1s._ each by carrying luggage. Says _A_ to _B_: 'I am
in favour of circulating books by means of a subscription library; from
this _1s._ I therefore propose to deduct _1d._ in order