evered going out of the library with one book in her hand which she was entitled to, it being charged, and with five thers hadden under her cloak, without permission.

Mr. Melvil Dewey has truly said that it is very hard to tell a library thief at sight. Well-dressed, gentlemanly, even sanctimonious looking men are among them, and the wife of a well-known college professor, detected in pur...ng books, begged so hard not to be exposed, that she was reluctantly pardoned, and even restored to library privileges.

A prominent lawyer of Brooklyn, of distinguished appearance and fine manners, did not steal books, but his

.T

alty was magazines and newspapers, which he carried frequently. Being caught at it one day, and accused by the librarian, he put on an air of dignity, declared he was insulted, and walked out. The librarian found the pro-lcal he had taken thrown down in the entry, and he never after frequented that library.

It is curious and instructive to know the experience of some Libraries regarding the theft or mutilation of books. Ts, in the public library of Woburn, Mass., a case of

it laton occurred by the cutting out of a picture from "Drake's Historic Fields and Mansions of Middlesex County." On discovery of the loss, a reward of $10 was offered for information leading to detection of the culprit.

.* was published in the town paper, and an article was nted calling attention to these library thefts and abuses,

by citing the State law making such depredations a penal offense. Within a week the missing plate came ak to the librarian through the mail-anonymou-ly of course, the person who had abstracted it finding that it was rather an unsafe picture to keep or exhibit, and wo ching to make his best policy honesty, though rather tarly in coming to that wise conclusion.

This experience, and others here cited, may serve as a hint what course to pursue under similar circumstances, in the reclamation of library books,

In the Library of the London Institution, continuous thefts of valuable editions of the classics had occurred. Putting a detective in the library, a young man of suspi cious demeanor was soon identified as the thief, and was followed and arrested in the very act of selling a library book. He proved to be a young man of good family, education and previous good character; but the library had suffered such losses from his depredations, that no mercy was shown, and he received and underwent the sentence to tw months imprisonment.

It may be added as an instance of methods availed of in London to trace missing books, that the librarian, knowing from the vacancies on the shelves what books had been ab stracted, printed a list of them, sent it to every secondhand book-dealer in London, at the same time supplying it to the police, who circulate daily a list of missing prop erty among all the pawn-brokers' shops in the city, and recovered all the books within twenty-four hours.

The Mercantile Library of Philadelphia missed a num ber of valuable books from its shelves, and on a watch being set, a physician in the most respectable rank in society was detected as the purloiner, and more than fifty v 1umes recovered from him.

A library at Lancaster, Pa., reported the almost incred ble incident of a thief having hidden under his coat, and carried off, a Webster's Unabridged Dictionary!

In most cases of detected theft or mutilation of books, strong appeals are made by the culprit or his frien is to save exposure by public prosecution. These are cim. morly, in the case of persons in very respectable eit im stances in life, not so much to avoid paying fines imposed

by law as to avoid the disgrace attached to publicity, and the consequent damage done to the character of the indi, dual. It is probably true that in a majority of cases, ah influences have been strong enough to overcome the termination of the librarian or library authorities to let the law take its course. Now, while it must be admitted t'at there is no rule without some valid exception that may nade, it is nevertheless to be insisted upon that due proteston to public property in libraries demands the enforcenent of the laws enacted to that end. The consequence of leniency to the majority of book thieves would be not only an indirect encouragement to the culprits to continue their depredations, but it would also lead to a lax and dangerous notion of the obligations of readers, and the sacredLess of such property, in the public mind. Enforcement of the penalties of wrong-doing, on the other hand, tends unquestionably to deter others, both by the fear of pub..ty which must follow detection, and by terror of the alty which is or may be imprisonment for a considerele term, besides the imposing of a fine.

At the Worcester, Mass., Public Library, a young man of twenty-two was detected in stealing a book, obliged to onfess, and prosecuted. Much pressure was brought to bear by his family and friends, very respectable people, to save him from the penalty. The Court, however, imposed afe of thirty dollars, and it being represented that his rest ves would have to pay the amount, though innocent tarts, the judge suspended the sentence until the young

nold pay it in instalments from his own earnings, one of the family giving bail. The valuable lesson was in 1.- way not lost, either to the offender or to the community; the law was enforced, and the young man perhaps savel from a life of wrong doing, while if he had been let

off scot-free, in deference to the influence exerted to that end, he might have gone from bad to worse.

At the Pratt Institute Free Library in Brooklyn, books had been disappearing from the reference department at intervals of about a week, and a watch was instituted. M ter some weeks' fruitless watching, a young man who came frequently to consult books was singled out as the probable offender, and the eyes of the library staff were centered upon him. The janitor watched his movements for some days, from a concealed post of observation, as the young man walked back and forth between the book stacks, and one day caught him in the act of slipping a book into his pocket, and arrested him as he was leaving the building. He had stolen a dozen books from the library, all but three of which were recovered. He claimed to be a theologal student, and that he had taken the books merely for the purposes of study. Much sympathy was expressed for him by people who believed that this was his motive, and that it was some partial atonement for his offense. The graf of his relatives at his disgrace was intense. The Court sentenced him to eight years in the penitentiary, but suspended the sentence in view of the fact that it was a first offense, by a youth of twenty-one years. He was put under police surveillance for his good behavior (equivalent to being paroled) but the sentence becomes active upon any further transgression of the law on his part.

It may be gathered from these many cases of library depredations, that they are very common, that perpetual vigilance is the price of safety, that punishment in nearly all cases is wiser than pardon, and that the few except: na made should be mostly confined to offenders who stea! books under desperate necessity or actual want.

CHAPTER 7.

PAMPHLET LITERATURE.

What is a pamphlet? is a question which is by no means capable of being scientifically answered. Yet, to the libraran dealing continually with a mass of pamphlets, books, and periodicals, it becomes important to define somewhere, the boundary line between the pamphlet and the book. The dictionaries will not aid us, for they all call the pamphlet “a few sheets of printed paper stitched together, but not be und." Suppose (as often happens) that you bind your pamphlet, does it then cease to be a pamphlet, and become a book? Again, most pamphlets now published are not »titched at all, but stabbed and wired to fasten the leaves together. The origin of the word "pamphlet," is in great dult. A plausible derivation is from two French words, "plume," and "feuillet," literally a hand-leaf; and another derives the word from a corruption of Latin--"papyrus," paper, into pampilus, or panfletus, whence pamphlet. The word is in Shakespeare:

"Comest thou with deep premeditated lines,

With written pamphlets studiously devised?”

But we also find "pamphlets and booky," in a work printed by Caxton in 1490, a hundred years before Shakespware

Whatever the origin, the common acceptation of the word is plain, signifying a little book, though where the ¡ in¡blet ends, and the book begins, is uncertain. The rile of the British Museum Library calls every printed pation of one hundred pages or less, a pamphlet. This arbitrary, and so would any other rule be. As