Mark’s, Venice) reported ‘no inconvenience as resulting’; but the remaining _fourteen_ told a very different tale--from the Royal Library, Berlin, ‘few books were lost,’ but books were damaged; at the City Library, Berne, ‘books do certainly suffer,’ and readers are inconvenienced; at the Royal Library, Copenhagen, ‘many inconveniences are the consequences of such a practice’; ‘books are lost, &c.’--a very eloquent ‘&c.’ especially if it be compared with the evidence of Molbech the librarian there, see ‘Remarks,’ p. 59; at the City Library, Frankfurt, ‘books are not entirely lost, but are often damaged’; at the Public Library, Geneva, ‘books are lost and damaged’; at the Brera, Milan, ‘generally speaking books are not injured,’ but readers are inconvenienced; at the National Library, Paris, it is hoped that rules have been adopted which would ‘prevent the great losses and just complaints of the public.’ (I may parenthetically observe that forty years ago or more the losses of this one library were estimated at _fifty thousand volumes_); at St. Geneviève, ‘the principle is acknowledged to be liable to many abuses’; at the Mazarene Library, ‘the system is found very dangerous’; at the Library of the Institute, the practice was condemned as ‘highly pernicious and practically liable to the abuses implied in the question’; at the Ducal Library, Parma, books are not lost and ‘few slightly damaged,’ but readers complain of inconvenience; at the Imperial Library, Prague, ‘readers were inconvenienced’; and at Wolfenbüttel, ‘all the inconveniences mentioned in the question are the consequence of the system’; that is to say, books were lost and damaged, and readers were inconvenienced. I have said that the answer returned from St. Mark’s, Venice (where lending on a very small scale prevailed), was that no inconvenience was felt, but it is well deserving of notice that the respondent continues thus, ‘_if librarians were asked all over the world_, AND THEY WOULD CANDIDLY ANSWER THE QUESTION, _one and all would deprecate the system of lending, being liable to every one of the abuses mentioned in the question_.’ Unfortunately librarians, like other people, will not always answer questions candidly. There is plenty more evidence of this sort, but what has been already adduced here and in the ‘Remarks’ is surely enough to prove the mischief inseparable from this silly practice even to the most obtuse of mankind.