Report of Society's Meetings. 163 



The Committee believe that the books selefted at these meetings have 

 given general satisfaftion, and that this is not without foundation may 

 be judged by the rush for the new books when they arrive. 



By the courtesy of the Honorary Treasurer they are able to state that 

 the amount spent on new books during the year was $871 84. For this 

 sum 567 volumes have been procured, these varying in price from 12 

 cents to 43 dollars, the average cost being §1 54 per volume. Of this 

 number 350 belong to the class of Fiftion, and 207 to the other classes. 

 While, however, the heavier works are outnumbered by the light 

 literature, in the matter of prices the case is reversed, the former cost- 

 ing $476 41, or about $2 30 per volume, and the latter §395 43 or §1 14. 

 Among the more expensive works added to the library may be men- 

 tioned the Century Diflionary, Nordenskiold's Facsimile Atlas, and a 

 file of "The Times'' for 1892; which last it is intended to continue an- 

 nually. A new set of Dickens' Works has also been received and used 

 to replace the worn-out volumes which appear to have done good 

 service. It may be interesting to note that this is the third set which has 

 been bought since 1865, when the present colleftion was begun, and 

 while they do not consider two sets of these popular books worn out in 

 28 years, anything very excessive, they cannot but remark that many of 

 the books in the library show signs of very rough handling, Wear and 

 tear must be expefted to show their effects on books as on everything 

 else, and they are quite willing to make allowances in the cases of 

 flimsily bound cheap novels. At the same time they must say that 

 tearing out fly leaves for pipe-lights, the disfiguring of books by scrib- 

 bling, attempts at caricature, and negleft to return loose leaves when 

 they happen to have come out while in the possession of the borrower, 

 show great carelessness at least on the part of some of the members. 



From statistics prepared for the Committee in May last, by the 

 Librarian, it appears that there has been a great increase in the circula- 

 tion of books and periodicals during the last four years. This has 

 amounted to about forty per cent, in the case of bound books, fifty per 

 cent, in magazines, 180 per cent, in newspapers, and 150 per cent, in 

 periodicals for the evening. Fiftion is here as elsewhere ahead of the 

 other classes of books in circulation, forming 88 per cent, of the whole ; 

 of the other classes Geography and Travel come first, followed by 

 History, Biography and Natural Science. This great demand for fic- 

 tion they have been unable to overlook as may be seen from the 

 number of additions in that class. While however, endeavouring a$ 



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