9 
the Children’s Library a good start having been made a special feature. 
I have again to report that there is very little to complain of in the way 
the books are used, and such damage as comes under our notice is 
rather the result of carelessness than any attempt at wilful injury. 
With the Children’s Library we shall have more opportunity of careful 
supervision and examination, and I am glad to say that up to the 
present there has been absolutely no occasion for complaint. The 
habit of making marginal notes, is not quite extinct with some of our 
older readers, but the comments rarely exhibit any critical value, and 
are mostly an exposure of the writer’s ignorance of the subject he 
comments upon. 
I think it is well to reiterate the fact that we take every possible 
precaution to prevent the Library becoming a means of spreading 
infection. I am constantly asked for information as to what we do, 
and it may perhaps be as well to state once again that we are regularly 
supplied, by the Sanitary Authority, with a list of the infected houses 
in the Borough, and under no circumstances is a book, which at the 
time is in such a house, allowed to come back to the Library. The 
householder is immediately warned and the book burned, either by an 
official of the Sanitary Authority, or by ourselves should it be brought 
to us. 
The number of new borrowers added during the year is about 
normal. Table VI shows the occupations of the last thousand of them, 
and presents several interesting features, and their distribution in the 
various Wards of the town is nearly the same as in previous years. 
The accompanying Table shows this distribution. 
PER THOUSAND. 
WARD. wdctual | to bp tt 4 
Bee rcke according to 
Population. 
Arboretintc.. sss. ose eee 133 168 
Babington ... ..- ..- + 162 122 
Becket cs. -<5 ‘=a gee a: 232 198 
GaStle ren etas, Mest en eee eas 64 II5 
Derwent... ss = as 52 64 
Friar Gate... ... 6. 127 113 
King’s Mead... we ees 117 145 
Litchurchyp sts) fis sss «> 113 75 
SS ee 
