THE LONDON LIBRARY.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—In your brief mention of the meeting of subscribers to the London Library in the Spectator of June 15th, you throw out a suggestion which may tend to discourage members and other persons, who were not present there, from responding to the appeal for £5,000 in aid of the plan for rearranging the building so as to render this valuable institution more useful for generations to come. May I therefore be allowed to say a few words in reply ? Our committee may, I think, be trusted to borrow on the most advantageous terms which they find possible ; and they are fully alive to the value of the security which they have to offer. But, even taking your own sanguine estimate, a loan of £17,000 at 2 per cent., to be repaid in twenty years,—when added to existing burdens, and to the £80 per annum of rental which we have to forego,—would have the effect of seriously cur- tailing the fund available for the purchase of books,—the very life and soul of the institution, and the cardinal point on which any scheme for enlarging and rearranging our premises must really turn. It is to meet this difficulty that the appeal is made. It is true that amongst the 2,300 members of the Society there are many who could ill-afford the average subscription of two guineas which would fall on each if all contributed equally ; but there are also not a few who, when the position is rightly understood, will, I am sure, be inclined to give of their abundance towards the prosecution of a scheme of widely reaching benefit, whose salutary effects, as we may confidently hope, will extend far into the twentieth
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