33 



no doubt of their right to speak with authority. In the first 

 place, I put in evidence an extract from an article which 

 appeared in the Atfimaum, with the suggestive title, 



" PUNISHING THE PUBLIC." 



"The present Librarian contrasts disadvantageously with 

 his official precursor. It is needless to inquire whether 

 his failure in one respect arises from want of scholarly sym- 

 pathy with scholars, and whether his ill success in the 

 other respect is due to a lack of the sagacity which is not 

 always conspicous in the " official mind. " It is enough 

 for us to remark with regret that, whilst his administrative 

 changes are not conducive to the safety of the property 

 under his charge, some of them are exceedingly vexatious 

 to ladies and gentlemen who are incapable of stealing or 

 wantonly injuring books. The Principal Librarian seems 

 to imagine that he is vigilant and active against the half- 

 dozen contemptible malefactors who thieve cheap books 

 of reference and tear pages from Post Office Directories, 

 when he is ostentatiously suspicious of the hundreds of 

 honest persons who visit the Museum Library for proper 

 purposes. 



It is strange that a supreme official, with detectives and 

 a strong regiment of vigilant servants under his command, 

 should avow himself powerless to discover and punish 

 half-a-dozen paltry knaves, unless he may treat the entire 

 body of Museum readers as possibly felonious. It may 

 occasion him surprise to learn how annoying some of his 

 arrangements are to ladies and gentlemen who are natur- 

 ally resentful of treatment which assumes them to be 

 objects of official suspicion ; but we can assure him that 

 we neither exaggerate, nor have any disposition to magnify 

 the offensiveness of his more irritating regulations. It is 

 not right that a scholar, whoVishes to consult a collection 



