=183.= The general public is comparatively indifferent to bibliographical rarities, and books which are merely curious or scarce should not be bought from the present restricted funds of British municipal libraries. There is a certain advantage in making a small special collection, on the museum plan, to trace and illustrate the evolution and history of printing and book production from the original manuscript forms, but the general connection of incunabula and rare specimens of typography by modern municipal libraries is neither possible nor desirable. There is infinitely more wisdom in spending £50 in a selection of modern works on technical subjects, which would be of immense service to living persons, than in spending the same amount in the purchase of a single rare Bible which will only appeal to a few students of typography. Books must not be regarded as an investment on which a profit can be made by a sale at some future date, because books of bibliographical rarity and much monetary value bought from public funds must remain public property, inalienable for all time. The books bought for a public library should rather be regarded as machinery or plant, to be renewed when necessary and kept thoroughly abreast of the times. =184.= Returning to the question of buying and preserving books of temporary interest. There are hundreds of subjects which in their day have excited great public interest, and in connexion with which an enormous literature exists, but which have faded into comparative insignificance with the lapse of time. Take subjects like the Jacobite Rebellions, French Revolution, American Civil War, the Slavery controversy, Crimean War or Disruption of the Church of Scotland. Every one of these subjects was represented in its day by cart-loads of books and pamphlets, but the whole of these have been sifted and epitomized by later historians in works of permanent value, and municipal libraries can simply buy these, and leave the preservation of the contemporary literature, which ranks as original authorities, to the care of the special libraries which exist for the purpose. The literature of the Boer War is a case in point, as also is much of the literature of the Great European War of 1914-1919 already. It is necessary for public libraries, while public interest is keen, to select the best, or what may seem best, from the mass of material pouring from the press, but presently all this will be condensed into a few classics, giving in a comprehensive and sufficient manner every fact of the slightest interest to posterity, and then all the ephemeral works can be discarded in their favour. What remains of any particular interest to students, or even ordinary readers, from the huge literature which arose from the Crimean War? Only Kinglake and perhaps two popular illustrated books. The same holds good with all subjects which have created immense contemporary literatures, and there need not be the slightest compunction about