1892-93. J NIAGARA LIBRARV. 339 



to collect the subscriptions and lay it out in books to the best advantage, 

 and that they act by the following rules : 



Rule I. 

 To receive from every subscriber three dollars and no more.. 



Rule II. 

 As soon as thirty dollars is collected to lay it out on books, none of which shall be 

 irreligious or immoral. 



Rule III. 

 Every subscriber may, if he chooses, when he pays his subscription, make the 

 choice of a book not exceeding his subscription, which shall be- procured for him with 

 all convenient speed, provided nothing irrehgious or immoral is contained in the same. 



Rule IV. 

 As soon as a number of books can be procured, not less than fifty volumes, every 

 subscriber shall be entitled to receive any book that remains in the library that he 

 chooses, which he shall return in one month in good order. 



Rule V. 

 No book shall be allowed to any of the subscribers unless they have first paid 

 their subscription." 



Here follows a catalogue of books received into the library 2nd March, 

 i8oi, No. I to 80. 



It is remarkable that the first thirty volumes are all of a religious 

 nature, volumes i, 2 and 3 being Blair's Sermons, and 4 and 5 Walker's 

 Sermons, 9 and 10 Fordyce's Sermons to Young Women ; the names of 

 Watts, Bunyan, Boston, Newton, Doddridge, Wilberforce, Watson, 

 Owen and Willison are seen. An attempt is even made to give proper 

 guidance to young people in an important crisis of life — as No. 28 on 

 the list is Religious Courtship. It* is not till we reach No. 34 that we 

 see any history, travel or poetry. This first purchase of eighty volumes, 

 costing £t,i lys., furnished the young people in these forty homes in 

 poetry only Ossian, Cowper's Task, Campbell's Pleasures of Hope, but 

 they might revel in the Citizen of the World and the Rambler, Bruce's 

 Travels, or Robertson's History of Charles V.,and if Religious Courtship 

 pleased them not as No. 28, No. 70 is simply Letters on Courtship. 

 The only work of a less specific gravity is No. 72,, The Story Teller, 

 which no doubt was popular with the children of those households. The 

 catalogue goes on during the years, up to 937, and contains many expen- 

 sive works ; then follows a list of payments for books, and money 

 received for dues, and several pages are then occupied with the account 

 of the annual, always spelled Annuall, meetings. These always took 

 place on the 15th August, and the record goes on without any break, 

 except the year 18 13, when the town was in the hands of the Americans, 



