S. Natoli, the Minister of Public Instruction in Italy, has
given
• some interesting statistics about the public and large private Libraries of the different States of Europe. They are not, how- ever, much guide to either the number of readers or the strength of the love of books in different countries, which would be known much better if we could tell the average number of books per house, and the number of times each volume is read. Of course -circulating libraries are not included in S. Natoli's statement, though Mr. Mudie's is probably of far more moral importance to England than any of our great libraries, except perhaps that of -the British Museum itself. Taking, however, the statistics for what they are worth, S. Natoli says that where Great Britain has 1,771,493 volumes in its public and large private libraries, or six to every 100 persons in its population, Italy has 4,149,281, or 19f to every 100 persons ; France has 4,389,000, or 11.7 to -each 100 persons ; Austria, 2,408,000, 6.9 per cent. ; Prussia, 2,040 ,450, or 11 per cent. ; Russia, 582,090, or I* per cent. ; Bavaria, 1,268,500, or 26k per cent. ; and Belgium, 509,100, or 10k per cent. It is clear, therefore, that Italy, which is a very ignorant country, has public libraries far beyond its proportional -education, and also probably Bavaria, while Prussia, which is the most educated of all, occupies in this list only a middle position.
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