Public Library SY^IliM^. 419 



at ihis date it is impossible to present any- data as to the slate of the 

 libraries of the Orange River and Transvaal Colonies. 



Private donations have not very largely helped the library move- 

 ment in England. The reverse is the case in Scotland, and of 

 course American citizens have nobly heljjed the cause in their own 

 countr\. Tn Massachusetts. \vhi<-h can claim indeed to be " the 

 banner State." no less than 1 jo liljraries have l)een built at a cost of 

 J J, millions of monev. and if we exclude the recent gifts of Mr. 

 Carnegie, there do not ap})ear to have been 50 libraries given to the 

 whole of Great Britain. Gifts of libraries tO' South Africa are hard 

 to find, though the noble bequests and gifts of the Savage family 

 to Port Pvlizabeth deserve special mention. But apart from the 

 Dessinian bequest to Cape Town, the gifts (vf Sir George (irey and 

 of Mr. Hiddingh. also to Cape Town, and the Macl-'arlane gift of 

 ^500 to Kimberlev, 1 am unalile to trace any others. 



The Cape Government has made special grants in aid of the 

 building of libraries, but in Great Britain the usual way that a library 

 has been built has been by mortgaging the future income of the rate. 

 America helps in many ways. One State gives grants, another gives 

 books, yet another hands over part of the State lands, and in addi- 

 tion to the money raised bv lcK"al taxation. man\ States hand over 

 other revenues to the Lil)rary Boards. One hands over the Dog- 

 Tax, another the fines from the Magistrates' Courts, and one State 

 in particular pays a sum for each book circulated. 



To compare the amount of monev devoted to libraries in the 

 three countries is very difficult owing to the different methods of 

 rating, taxing, and granting adopted. Bui I would point out that 

 while Birmingham, a city of 4^9,000 inhabitants, devotes only 

 ^14.437 to libraries. Hoslon. with 448.000 inhabitants, devotes 

 ^5 1, 56 J. Taking other towns of equal size on the two sides of the 

 herring pond, Xewcastle-on-Tyne devotes only ^^4.331. while Newark 

 and Minneapolis devote ^8.043 and ^^14.321. Aberdeen spends 

 only ^^2.24^. Oldham ^J.155. Blackburn ;^t.959, Bolton _^i.9o8, 

 Sunderland ^1.031 : \et Xewhaven. with its smaller population, 

 spends ^3.71-. The total library expenditure of Great Britain is 

 less than ^jj 0,000. while the two cities of Boston and Chicago alone 

 spend half of that sum between them. 



Turning to South Africa, the total amount paid out of the 

 general revenues of Cape Colon\ in 1899- 1900 was _;^9.ooo as 

 against jQio.'j^2 in the previous year. The total number of persons 

 subscribing was 9.438. and the total number of books only 421,731. 

 Xatal only paid from her revenues ^1,952, and the total number of 

 volumes in the Colony was under 50.000. while she had l»ut 3.073 

 subscribers. 



Recently I tried to test the work that we were doing in Kim 

 berley by comparing it with that which was being done bv equal- 

 sized Public Libraries at Home. There are. I found, twenty 

 libraries in Great Britain of between 25.000 and 40.000 volumes, and 

 they are variously situated. They vary from Norwich, founded in 

 1850. and St. Helens, founded in 1869. to Carlisle, foundefl in i8go. 



