it, and so choosing to make his best policy honesty, though rather
tardy in coming to that wise conclusion.

This experience, and others here cited, may serve as a hint what course
to pursue under similar circumstances, in the reclamation of library
books.

In the Library of the London Institution, continuous thefts of valuable
editions of the classics had occurred. Putting a detective in the
library, a young man of suspicious demeanor was soon identified as the
thief, and was followed and arrested in the very act of selling a library
book. He proved to be a young man of good family, education and previous
good character; but the library had suffered such losses from his
depredations, that no mercy was shown, and he received and underwent the
sentence to two months imprisonment.

It may be added as an instance of methods availed of in London to trace
missing books, that the librarian, knowing from the vacancies on the
shelves what books had been abstracted, printed a list of them, sent it
to every second-hand book-dealer in London, at the same time supplying it
to the police, who circulate daily a list of missing property among all
the pawn-brokers' shops in the city, and recovered all the books within
twenty-four hours.

The Mercantile Library of Philadelphia missed a number of valuable books
from its shelves, and on a watch being set, a physician in the most
respectable rank in society was detected as the purloiner, and more than
fifty volumes recovered from him.

A library at Lancaster, Pa., reported the almost incredible incident of a
thief having hidden under his coat, and carried off, a Webster's
Unabridged Dictionary!

In most cases of detected theft or mutilation of books, strong appeals
are made by the culprit or his friends to save exposure by public
prosecution. These are commonly, in the case of persons in very
respectable circumstances in life, not so much to avoid paying fines
imposed by law as to avoid the disgrace attached to publicity, and the
consequent damage done to the character of the individual. It is probably
true that in a majority of cases, such influences have been strong enough
to overcome the determination of the librarian or library authorities to
let the law take its course. Now, while it must be admitted that there is
no rule without some valid exception that may be made, it is nevertheless
to be insisted upon that due protection to public property in libraries
demands the enforcem