The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-30

The BRITISH MUSEUM READING RooM-The
room set apart for readers in 1859 was a cor
ner room in the base story of Montague House,
furnished with a wainscot table and twenty
chairs. To this study DR.. johnson, DIR.
Lowth, and David Hume frequently went:
and far from speaking scornfully of it, they
congratulated themselves on the liberality of
its arrangements. In due course readers
were provided with more space and better
chairs in what British Museum students of
fifteen years standing are wont to refer to as
''the old reading room"-the two apartments
in an ugly building in the rear of the main
edifce of the museum, where the compilers
on the evergrowing and never-to be-ended
catalogue work. 1t was in these stuffy rooms
that the literary aspirant, fresh from college,
used to make acquaintance with the museum
headache" and the museum flea, and amuse
himself during minutes of repose from study
with watching the grotesque faces, indescri-
bable garments, and eccentric manners of
departed generation of bookworms. As we
write, some of these comcal and more or
less useful people of letters reappear to afford
us mournful diversion-the historical lady
with a strong mind and moustache, who
never condescended to address an attendant
in voice that was not audible from end to
end of both rooms; the feeble old gentleman
of snuffy and romantic tastes, who never
read anything but the Waverley novels, which
he used to peruse over and over again. year
in and year out, taking with each paragraph
of the artists fascinating prose a huge pinch
of Princes Mixture, which lay beside him on
the table in paper tray; the piquant and
rather impudent damsel who daily came to
read and stopped to chatter in the common
tudy, where she always seated herself
at the of table, SO that
her scarlet petti,oat and stockings
were visible to the greatest possible number
OF spectators; the huge, gigantic, red-nosed,
ragged tatterdemalion who came daily to his
seat to study the Fathers, and to impart to
Lis particular corner of the room an odor of
sp irituous liquors. Visions also arise before
us of ancient attendants who have found rest
from their labors-the kindly, civil old man
who never appeared on duty without big
wig on his head, and bright flower in his
buttonhole; and the garrulous scholar, over
flowing with Latin quotations and ipdica-
tons of a ruinous taste for gin and beer:
who had studied books before he came to
earn his livelihood by carrying them about.
Instead of the two poor back rooms we
now have the ground hall of study, with its
luxurious seats, its unmanageable draughss
of cold and scarcely less affecting supplies
of hot air-the hall for which every pious
and grateful student offers a daily prayer in
bel af of Sir Anthony Panizzi. In the early
days of the institution the readers numbered
dDOut uau-d-uOZeH ually, Wnlle during tno
last three years the daily average has been
342, 354 and 357, .. C., in 1866 there were
90, S57 readers; in 1867, 1O3, 469; and in 1868,
103, 529. That this splendid reading-room
is all that we could desire, or all that
it was intended to be, cannot be said so
long as the efforts of the authorities to con-
quer it's draughts are unsuccessful. Again,
readers-especially those whose time is excep-
tionally valuable-exclaim with reason against
the time which an applicant for svolums
has to wait for it if he gives in his ticket in
the middle or toward the close of the day;
while the reader who enters the room early
gets the books which he requires in few
minutes. The cause is plain. BY the middle
of the day the written applications for books
have become numerous; and as each applica-
tion is taken in turn, the late corners tickets
receive no attention till the attendants have
disposed of an accumulation of prior demands
An Industrious author by profession Says
81 can't afford to use the museum library
] am so circumstanced that / can't visit the
reading room till the after part of the day.
when l should be kept so long waiting in
idleness for the desired works that the
privilege of using them would be purchased
too dearly. On the WHOLE find it cheaper
to buy books than to read at the museum. -
London AthenGum.