Sir Stafford Northcote has an opportunity of doing a great
service to the public. He must sanction the next estimate sent up from the British Museum. Before he does so, let him insist on the thorough ventilation of the building, and especially of the Reading-room and Printed-book Rooms, on the plan which has proved so successful in Somerset House. Let the payments begin when the work is done, and it will be done at once. If the Trustees resist and resign, so much the better, for the Crown could then take a patronage which in the Universities it twee excellently well. We cannot afford to expend Professors merely because the authorities of the Museum do not want to be worried with improvements, or to deprive readers of air and light because the Chief Librarian has no architectural ingenuity. Nothing makes " authorities " so sensible as stopping their salaries till they have shown sense, unless indeed it be sub- jecting them to the inconveniences which, when subordinates suffer them, seem so small. Suppose the head of the Museum were sentenced to the Book cellars for a month!
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