CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 September 1924, Page 7

CORRESPONDENCE.

MUTILATION OF LIBRARY BOOKS. (To the Editor.) Sir, —The public library of New Plymouth is a deservedly popular and most useful institution, of which, doubtless, the people of this progressive town are naturally very proud. To visitors attracted by the beauties of the town and its environs, its health-giving properties, the remarkable fertility of the province of Taranaki, and the proximity of that most glorious of snow-clad mountains, majestic Mount Egmont, the library is an additional boon <and blessing. What more can even a sybarite desire than a holiday spent in exploring the beauties of this highly-favoured province and a quiet evening by the fireside with a good book from New Plymouth’s well-stocked library? It is not surprising, therefore, if many visitors, like myself, have frequent recourse to this literary solace. Recently I visited the library to return a book and procure another. I chose a book entitled, “The Hope of Europe,” by Sir Philip Gibbs, one of the ablest, oculist, and, generally speaking, one of the most popular English writers of to-day. I glanced through the book and, to my great surprise and genuine indignation, found that several of the pages are disfigured by marginal comments and foot-notes written in what I would call a clerkly hand. These notes and marginal comments are, of course, anonymous, and are confined almost exclusively to one chapter. This is the third chapter, and bears the heading. “The Truth About Ireland.” Perhaps I might add that the book, as a whole, deals ■with the trend of thought and national development in some of the European countries. The title of chapter 3 and the comments of the anonymous scribe on certain statements set forth in this long and interesting chapter, clearly indicate the nature of the religious tenets and political views of this unauthorised and prejudiced commentator. His action in scribbling his own opinions, or anything else in any book in a public library is a grave violation of all library regulations, and an unmistakable example of very bad taste; .but when, in addition to this, be ventilates his own peculiar bias on the pages of a book for general reading, then his offence is a crime, a dastardly outrage that merits a drastic punishment.

Let me particularise. On page 89 the author writes, “The Catholic hierarchy established Maynooth as the training college for Irish priests, and it became the training ground also for Sinn Fein-” We may or may not agree with the author as to the truth of the second part of that sentence; but no one save a violent anti-Catholic partisan of the old, bitter school, will approve of the comment of the anonymous scribe whom I shall refer to. when necessary, as A.S. This is what he adds after the words “Sinn Fein.” “And for years the hotbed of Jesuitical intrigue and of rebellion.” Any comment from me on this manifestation of good, hoary old bigotry would be superfluous. At the foot of the page A.S. thus delivers himself: “Maynooth College was established by W. F. CJladstone, the so-called English Protestant.” At this astounding statement I can only exclaim with Domince Sampson. Prodee-gi-ous! If Gladstone founded Maynooth it wag a <Ye» cidedly pre-natal performance. Maynooth College was founded years before W. E. Gladstone (though he did live to a ripe old age) was born. From this, as a sample, one may judge of the weight and importance of the subsequent scattered comments, of which there are exactly half a dozen.

It may be said that the best way to deal with such rubbish is to leave it severely alone, and not stir up unpleasant odours. I admit that not much good can be done by chasing an anonymous scribbler with an epistolary cudgelNevertheleas, it is salutary, to Jet in the light of day and the free winds of Heaven on such pestilential rubbish, and to brand A.S. and all others of that ilk (I hope their number is not large) as malicious mischief-makers and pestiferous humbugs, who are cursed with “the etch of scribbling.” Will A.S., for he must have a personality of some kind, shed his anonymity and come forth into the open? Of this, “I hae ma doots.” “Like the veiled Prophet of Khorassan,” he will retain his mask and hide himself in the graceless oblivion to which I now consign him.—l am, etc., A VISITOR. New Plymouth, Sept. 23, 1924.