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Chief Librarian will train them to take care of their cards. 

 Here we have his theory, statement of an evil, and remedy. 

 We question whether he could produce ten facts in sup- 

 port of the theory. Your library-sneak is almost always 

 on the square matters of mere form, just as your fugi- 

 tive criminal is usually provided with a sufficient passport, 

 wherever passports are requisite for the comfort of travel- 

 lers. Whenever the Librarian shall be so fortunate as to 

 catch a Reading-room thief, he will find the delinquent 

 duly armed with a pink ticket, specially granted to him. 

 But, whatever the facts on which the Librarian has based 

 his theory, it is obvious that they point to the dangerous- 

 ness of tickets, and the advisability of abolishing the 

 whole system of cards of admission. If lost tickets are 

 so productive of mischief, it is impolitic to multiply the 

 tickets which are liable to be lost. The Librarian may 

 have his way in training and punishing readers, 

 but he will fail to teach them to be sufficiently 

 careful. Cards will be lost ; and the Librarian 

 would not venture to refuse to give new tickets 

 to their losers. Parliament will be slow to make the 

 losing of a reading-ticket an offence punishable with 

 imprisonment, or fine, or loss of a student's rights in the 

 public library. Consequently, in proportion as more 

 tickets are granted, more will be lost, and, according to 

 the Librarian's theory, more thieves will be qualified to 

 sneak into the Library and steal or damage books of refer- 

 ence. The remedy will, in the long run, aggravate the 

 mischief it is intended to cure. It is idle to dream of 

 curing by tickets the trouble caused by tickets. Instead of 

 extending the ticket-of-leave system, and thereby furnish- 

 ing the very machinery by which he declares the delin- 

 quents gain access to the Library, let the Chief Librarian 



