writing for overdue books, issue of tickets, and similar matters 

 remain about the same as in former years. 



The table showing the occupations of borrowers is always an 

 interesting one. "We tabulate the last thousiand, and one year 

 shows little variation from its predecessors. Clerks and book- 

 keepers, scholars and students, and the various occupations con- 

 nected with the engineering tr'ade nearly always head the list, 

 although 312 of the 1,000 are returned as of "no occupation." This 

 does not necessarily mean that they belong to the leisured classes, 

 for the majority of those so returned are mai-ried ladies, to whom 

 the description of " no. occupation "' is, or should be, a misnomer. 

 As compared with last year's thousand, barmaids, basketmakers, 

 dentistsi, grooms, lamplighters, pawnbrokers, policemen and plas- 

 terers have disappeared, but in their places have come an 

 auctioneer, a brewer, a fireman, two' coachmen, two journalists, a 

 ropemaker, a signalman, a sweep, a window cleaner, and I believe 

 for the first time, a chauffeur. One thing is certain, all classes use 

 the Library, a,nd there are few businesses or professions 

 unrepresented among our borrowers. 



With regard to the News rooms, there is nothing to add to 

 what I have said many times previously. They could hardly be 

 more used, and there is generally no serious complaint as to the 

 behaviom- of those who use them. The regulation as to silence is 

 sometimes broken, I believe mostly from thoughtlessness, but I 

 ailways find that a word quietly spoken is enough to check the 

 offender. I have spoken above of the thefts we have 



unfortunately had during the year, and another class of offence is 

 the mutilation of newspapers and magazines. A man sees an ad- 

 vertisement of a situation he thinks would suit someone he knows, 

 or of an article which he ought to. buy, and if no one happens to 

 be looking, cuts it out, and takes it home for reference. The same 

 thing, I regret to say, occurs where we should least expect it, in 

 the Ladies' Reading Room, where not infrequently a picture of a 

 pretty blouse or a smart tailor-made costume or some similarly in- 

 teresting object is abstracted by the same methods. I believe the 

 number of these depredators is small, and that the vast majority 



