STOLEN BOOKS

Southland Times, Issue 20537, 13 July 1928, Page 8

STOLEN BOOKS

PUBLIC LIBRARY’S LOSS VARIED TASTES OF BIBLIOPHILE VOLUMES SURREPTITIOUSLY RETURNED The annual stocktaking of the Invercargill Public Library discloses the fact that the book thief has been again at work; during the year, no fewer than 48 volumes, comprising fiction both foreign and English, class books and several books from the reference department that can have been taken only by educated persons, have disappeared from the shelves. In the fiction department, 20 books have completely disappeared and twelve are in the possession of former subscribers who have left Invercargill or otherwise disappeared from the ken of the librarian. The titles of the books are not indicative of any particular type of reader but run from Wodehouse’s “Man With Two Left Feet” to Stevenson’s “Wrecker.” Apparently S.P.B. Mais appeals to the bibliophile for two of his books—“Colour Blind” and “Eclipse” are missing. A taste for humour also is evident by the fact that Wodehouse’s “Heart of a Goof,” Twain’s “Horse’* Tale,” Jacob’s “Ship’s Company,” and Jerome’s “Miscellany of Nonsense” are all among the missing. Four books of foreign fiction, all translations, have been taken—Dumas’ “Watchmaker,” Anatole France’s “White Stone,” Gourmont’s “Virgin Heart” and Souvestre’s “Limb of Satan.” Only two class books were taken, but from these two it can be seen that the over-ardent book-lover is the anti-type of “Big Bill” Thompson, for Colyer’s “Americanism ; A World Menace” has evidently appealed to him. Barrie’s “Plays: What Every Woman Knows” is the only other missing volume. It was in the reference department, however, that the most peculiar thefts were made—“A Comparative Grammar of the French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese languages,” “Cryptography,” “A Glossary of Modern French Slang” and “Everyman’s Chemistry” are indicative of the aesthetic tastes of the thief or thieves. “The Junior Typist,” quite a cheap book, was stolen for a second time, after a duplicate copy had replaced one stolen last year. < That all of them have not been stolen for ever, but only borrowed forcibly, is evident from the fact that several volumes that were missing last year are back again on the shelves. “The Everlasting Mercy,” a book of Masefield’s poems has returned after a mysterious absence of at least nine years. “A Small Book on Electric Motors” that was missing two years ago has surreptitiously been replaced on the shelves and a most unusual book “Dreams and Primitive Culture,” being a lecture on a semi-Frendian system of philosophy is also back on the shelves.

Altogether, the question is a peculiar one and most annoying to the authorities and it is to be hoped that the bibliomaniacs will moderate their passion during the ensuing year. .