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. 



