A Boston librarian stated that the thieves or mutilators of books included school-boys, clerks, students, teachers, soldiers, physicians, lawyers, clergymen, etc. In only one case was the crime committed through want or suffering. Yet, though the offenders had been proven guilty in every instance, only two cases were known in which the penalty of the law had been enforced. Does not this bespeak laxity of public morals in Boston in regard to such abuses of library property? The Union Theological Seminary at New York recorded its experience with ministers and theological students, to the effect that its library had lost more than a thousand volumes, taken and not returned. This of course included what were charged out, but could not be recovered. A librarian in Auburn, N. Y., returning from vacation, found that the American Architect, an important illustrated weekly, had been mutilated in seven different volumes, and that 130 pages in all had been stolen. Fortunately, she was able to trace the reader who had been using the work, and succeeded in recovering the abstracted plates. The offender was prosecuted to conviction, and had to pay a fine of fifty dollars. It often happens that books which disappear mysteriously from a public library re-appear quite as mysteriously. Those taking them, finding that the rules do not allow certain books to leave the library, make a law unto themselves, carry off the book wanted, keep it until read, and then return it surreptitiously, by replacing it on some shelf or table, when no one is looking. This is where no intention of stealing the book exists, and the borrower wilfully makes his own convenience override the library regulations, in the belief that he will not be found out. The Buffalo Young Men's Library reported in one year eighteen illustrated works on the fine arts, reserved from being taken out by its by-laws, as disappearing for weeks, but brought back in this underhanded manner. In other cases of such return, it is likely that the purpose was to keep the book, but that conscience or better thoughts, or fear of detection prevailed, and secured its return. Some instances where leniency has been exercised to save book thieves from penalties may be instructive. One man who had carried off and sold two volumes from the Astor Library was traced and arrested, when he pleaded that absolute want had driven him to the act. He had a wife ill and starving at his home, and this on investigation proving true, he was pardoned and saved further misery. In another case, a poor German had stolen a volume of the classics which he pawned for a small sum to get bread for himself, being long out of work, and in a condition bordering closely upon starvation. He was released, the book reclaimed, and the offender turned over to the agencies of public charity.