TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9144, 1 July 1895, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Mr T. W. Rowe, someThe time head master of the Literary Taste Rangiora High School, of and now chief librarian Wellington. of the Wellington Public Library, has a very pretty taste for statistics, and hia auuual report on the library wa3 evidently a labour of love, besidee being a work of art in figures. In common wi'h similar reports issued by English librarians, which. Mr Rowe has imitated with some success, it gives an interesting insight into the literary tastes of those who make use of the library. Wβ learn that at the end of Mirch the I lending department contained 5753 books, and the reference department 8395, or a grand total of 14,123 books. Of those in the leading library works of fiction of course form the largest portion, there being iv round numbers 3000 volumes of this class of literature. From one of the carefully prepared tables of figures in which Mr Rowe delights, it is shown that 85.33 per cent, of the total number of books issued during the year to subscribers came from this class, tho percentage of readers of history being 3.70, of " miscellaneous" works 3.37, of voyages, travels, fee;., 3.15, theology bringing up t'ae rear with a percentage of 0.70. In theology and philosophy the moat popular book waa Drumtnoud'e " Ascent of Man;" in history and biography " The Last of the Bushrangers," " Bush Fighting," and Carlylo's "JL'rench Revolution;" in travels, &c, •' Where Three Empires Meet," "John Bull and C 0.," " Eastern Seaa," " Seas and Lands," and "The Cruise of the Alert." ''If Christ Came to Chicago" and I Carlylo's " Chartism." and " Past and Present" had most readers in the class devoted to social and political subjects, and in <*rls and sciences Laing'a " Problems I of the Future" and Huxley's " Darwiniana" were most j/^vlttClaneona" .books showed a'marked preference for Kipling's " Jungle book" aud " Barrack J .room ballads," aud "Three Men in a Boat." " A fellow Aster" led the iaoe in fiction, bub was closely followed by "Won by Waiting, ,, the " Heavenly Twine," " Knight Errant," " Donovan," "Thelma,"" Ardath," "A Hardy Norsemau," and "M&roella." I Suoh popular favourites as Mrs Henry Wood, Rider Haggard, Edna Lyall, Conan i Doyle, Besant and Rice, and Besant alone, R. L. Stevenson, Marie Cirelli, Marion Crawford, and Mias Braddon hold pride of i place in the order named in the list of 'popular authors, Georga Bliofc, Dickena, i Thackerajpaud Scott coming low down ti»e list. This, however, shows the weakness of all such reports, for many people own the works of the throe last named authors, and consequently do not require to borrow them from a library. Coming to the Reference The Library, we are confronted Reference, with more columns of statusLibrary, tics, ehowing the number of books iv each of eleven different classes, the numb&r of readers in each class in each month of the year, the daily average of books issued, and of readers in each month, and also on each day of the week. Books dealing with literature and philology were most aought after, and those on arts, trades, &c, were next in favonr. The daily average of readers throughout the year was 29 59, and of books issued 39.72. Le33 people used the library on Tuesdays that on any other uay iv the weak, but for Wednesday, the day of the halfho'iday, the average was only 30 b%, which shows that whatever else the Wellington people do with their holiday they do not spend it in reading. There is apparently a system in force by which each person using the library enters h ! s trade or profession in a book, and we are therefore enabled to learn that ainoug the 1353 readers who used the library daring the year were an aeronaut, an author, a barmaid, a bushman, a crier, a cricketer, a tourist, and a Salvationist, two constables, three sculptors, three cooks, and bo on through every conceivable occupation until we come to seventy-five " household duties," 118 "no employment," and 219 clerks. Mr Rowe estimates that from 500 to 700 people use the Library daily, the greatest number of persons counted in the building atone time being 165. Only ten volumes, it may be noted, were lost from the lending library last year, two being paid for by the borrowers, and one being burnt in a fire. It is also stated that- fifty-two volumes (all duplicates) were presented to the Chatham Islands Institute, an excellent idea, which might with advantage be practised by other Libraries. • Tins number of those The who believe in the posScotch sibility of the Kildonan Gold Diggings, goldnelde, ia Sutherlandshire (referred to in another column), turning ouo a second Coolgardie is evidently limited, for there was a complete absence of 'anything like a rush when they were recently thrown open by the Connty Council. And yet it might have been expected that some more people would have tried their luck; for gold has been proved to exist in the swift little streams that drain the Morven Hills, though hitherto hardly in sufficient quantities to be very payable. "One who has been there," writing to a London paper, eaya that, living near the spot, be has never met with anyone who has-been even moderately euosoaaful, but admits that all hia friends were amateur miners or foasickers, whose tiraC object was trout, and who started washing alluvial when tne'fUb Were off the feed. Thoaowho

have patience and ac c skill seldom fail to find by this means s< ie traces of the yellow metal. Usually, he iys, the gold is a fi Qe impalpable dust, wish almost refuses to settle. Sometimes, >wever, tiny nuggeta ire found, one of wh h ho saw mounted a* a scarf pm. Of coi c, there are legends of much larger finds, id a lady showed him a fine bracelet of pale old which, she told him, had been made rom a nugget found by her husband when shing ia the Holmsdale. A pioneer to X donan narrates how he went there ou his i turn from California

in 1853, inspired by

story of a piece of

gold having been founi? ' the sizj of a pot." He worked for four wtiks aud got £H worth of gold, and if he bad teen allowed to go where he liked he co|H have gob a good deal more." "I had tfe honour," he says, "of washing out befpe some ladies and geutlemen from Duupbiu (the Duke'a castle), and put all mylthree weeks' washing into the cradle frop my flask when I saw they were approachfigi and my yield from my washtng-oufcipleaaed them very much. I did nob say tfct two Highlanders who were with mc hai washed for three weeks to get it. All faey wished to see was a wash out. Aid they saw it." We are remiuded that fchere is warrant in history for the belief tpt gold exists ia paying quautities in the forth of Scotland. The number of prehistoric gold ornamouts found in the country seeri to point to the fact tltat in early fimes considerable quantities were found ty the natives, to whom foreign trade wa4 almost unknown. Then in 1155 we find a gniit of David I. to the Abbey of Dumferruliifi of a tithe of all the gold found between Fije aud Fothril— the monks rarely asked foj a useless privilege—and in 1424 the Scatish Parliament granted to the King in sflemn session all the gold mines then beingjworked. In the present day, however, the lildonan diggings seem unlikely to be as payable as those owned by Mr Pritchari Morgan near Dolgellj', in Mid Wales, where goldmining is now carried on in th< moan approved fashion with very profitably results.