NIGHT REILDING-R0011 AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM.-III a letter to the
Athenian's, a " Landing Waiter " revives an old suggestion which cer- tainly ought to meet with encouragement. It seems that the Landing Waiter has devoted part of his leisure to reading in the British Museum ; but as the days draw in, the library is closed at an earlier hour; and between the daily occupation of the Landing Waiter and the early closing movement of the autumn, he has lost the hour and a half which he used to snatch for the library. The reason why the library of the
i Museum is not open at night is, that there would be danger of fire if lights were admitted among the books; and the collection is so valuable that any risk of the kind ought to be absolutely shut out. This is quite sound ; on no consideration ought the slightest risk of fire to be incurred.
On the other hand, there are numbers whose only leisure is in the evening, and many also find that time of the day most suited for study. But while they are debarred from the library after dark, a free public library like the British Museum is only half as useful as it should be. The Landing Waiter suggests that Government should lease or purchase a private house, say in Montague Place or Montague Street, to which a back-entrance should be obtained from the Museum. The first or second floors could be fitted up for the accommodation of readers, and thrown open every evening, say from six to ten. At present, books could be obtained by day in the usual manner ; but ultimately dupli- cate catalogues might be lodged in the supplemental reading-room. The difficulty for those who do not attend in the day might in the meanwhile be diminished, if one of the Museum attendants were permitted, for a small fee, to receive from the evening readers orders to seek the books needed. The risk of fire would then be limited to the few volumes sent over to the night reading-room. Even there, indeed, the risk would be less, because the hazards always increase with the direct increase of the number of lights and persons moving about. If the public library is to be useful to a large number of studious and meritorious persons, some ar- rangement of this kind should be adopted.
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