es would disappear. According to Mr. Thos.
Greenwood, who in his book on 'Free Libraries' has given a table of the
daily average number of visitors at the different Free Libraries
distributed up and down the country, there is only one per cent., on an
average, of visitors per day of the population of the town to which the
library belongs accommodated for a rate of one penny in the
pound,--sometimes more, sometimes less;--but the general proportion is
about one per cent. Now what do these facts mean? If it costs one penny
in the pound to acommodate so few, what would it cost for a fair
proportion to receive anything like a share that would be worth having?
Even now it is a frequent occurrence for a reader to wait for months
before he can get the novel he wants. Says Mr. George Easter, the
Norwich librarian:--'Novels most read are those by Ainsworth,
_Ballantyne_, _Besant_, _Braddon_, _Collins_, _Craik_, Dickens, Fenn,
Grant, _Haggard_, _Henty_, _C. Kingsley_, _Kingston_, _Edna Lyall_,
Macdonald, Marryat, Oliphant, Payn, Reade, Reid, Verne, Warner, _Wood_,
_Worboise_, and _Young_; of those underlined (in italics) the works are
nearly always out.' The fact is, the Free Library means that the many
shall work and pay and the few lounge and enjoy; theoretically it is
free to all, but practically it can only be used by a few.

While there is such a run on novels, solid works are at a discount. At
Newcastle-on-Tyne during 1880-81 we find that 2100 volumes of Miss
Braddon's novels were issued (of course some would be issued many times
over, as the whole set comprised only thirty-six volumes), while Bain's
'Mental and Moral Science' was lent out only twelve times in the year.
There were 1320 volumes issued of Grant's novels, and fifteen issues of
Butler's 'Analogy of Religion'; 4056 volumes of Lever's novels were
issued, while Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' circulated four times;
4901 volumes of Lytton's novels were issued, while Locke 'On the
Understanding' went eight times. Mill's 'Logic' stands at fourteen
issues as against Scott's novels, 3300; Spencer's 'Synthetic Philosophy'
(8 vols.) had forty-three issues of separate volumes; Dickens' novels
had 6810; Macaulay's 'History of England' (10 vols.) had sixty-four
issues of separate volumes. Ouida's novels had 1020; Darwin's 'Origin of
Species' (2 vols.) had thirty-six issues; Wood's novels, 1481. Mill's
'Political Economy' had eleven issues; Worboise's novels, 1964. Smith's