To the Editor of the Sm,—The Shanghai Library is an institution which seems at this moment to be in a very bad way; in fact, many persons look on it as moribund. I crave a little space in your valuable paper, in which to discuss the state the Library is in and how it came into this state, and to propose a remedy.
No one apparently knows to whom the books belong. There is no Trust Deed of the Library, nor are there any Trustees. Probably the subscribers have a right to consider themselves the owners. At any rate, I do not think that any other claimants would dispute it. If thesis so, and if there is a collapse, and the books are sold, each subscriber will get a return of some 15 or 20 taels, at least, on his subscription, after all debts are paid off. The Library at. this moment contains in round numbers 3,600 separate works, and includes, one may fairly say, all the standard productions of modern English literature. Among these area few rare and valuable books. For instance, we have a complete copy of the "Chinese Repository," priced in Quaritch' catalogue at £40, Ruskin's "Modern Painters," worth from £15 to £18, and in addition to the Encyclopedia Britannica of is being published. We have also a quantity of novels, that can only have been read when new; books of travel, once interesting perhaps, when the author was the latest lion of the London season, but now for-then; and theological works by tenth-rate vines, which have perhaps never been opened. The Committee further undertake to procure all new books that are at_all readable, as soon as possible after publi tion, and very well this part of the work is done. The Library in fact has to perform two separate functions, that of Library and that of Book Club, and between these two stools it has fallen'to the ground.
The annual subscription this year is ten taels, with two dollars foracatalogue. The Committee assure us that this amount is too low, and so next year it is to be raised to Is. A debt of Tls. 334 is also A loan is only a temporary This debt must be eventually wiped off, either by increased subscriptions, a whip, or by the sale of the books, and collapse of the Institution. Many of the present subscribers threaten to leave, and there is little chance of new members being attracted so long as affairs are shaky. We have at present some 130 or 140 annual subscribers to represent the reading public of Shanghai. I make bold to say that 75 of these are men of wealth and position in our community. Ask a junior clerk in a mercantile house, or in a'store, or a junior officer in the Customs or Consulate, why he does not subscribe? He will reply, can't afford it," or "It is not worth the money." How many persons belonging to the outdoor staff of the Customs are members of the Library? How many engineers? How many officers of coasting and river steamers?' Nay, how many Missionaries subscribe? I think all these may be counted on one's fingers, perhaps on the fingers of one hand.
We must not forget that there is no copyright Taw in Shanghai, Tauchnitz? books are only half a dollar a volume, and American reprints are even cheaper, and I fear that the hatred of literary piracy deters few of us from picking up a book if cheap. Moreover, books are continually sold at auctions for next to nothing, Consequently, one may almost buy books for a year's reading, for little more than the price of hiring them at the Library. Besides this, the Club Library is now thrown open, an there is at least one Book Club in private hands. What chance, then, have we of im-Proving our position under: the present system? I believe none; but why not bow to circumstances, and make an entirely fresh start We call ourselves the Model Settlement. We have every possible establishment for amusement, the finest, and (as I was once assured by' a professional actor) the most commodious theatre in the Far East, a first-rate race-course and cricket ground, racquet courts, rowing club, and skating rink, but, with the exception of the Museum and the Temperance Hall, not a single free institution for the public. In such benighted cities as Hongkong and Singapore, there are capital free libraries into which any one may go and read, but where can one find a similar place here?
I propose that we split up the present Library into two divisions, to be named respectively "The Shanghai Library" and "The Shanghai Book Club," both, however, to be sister institutions, and to be carried on under the same roof. Let the Shanghai Library be free, and be open all day for any one to come in and read, and let the books in the present Library, procured before June, 1877, be handed over to it, though it might be as well to make a little judicious weeding before doing so. I would further propose arulo that any one paying an annual subscription of, say, three taels a year or a dollar a quarter, should be entitled to take books out of the Shanghai Library as
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.