Not in vain shall I have addressed you, if on your memories dwell some few thoughts that shall ripen into deeds; not in vain, if at the fast approaching Public Meeting the Libraries’ Act is carried by acclamation. Not in vain shall I have written, if I have induced you, NOT to reject this Act! MATTHEW FEILDE. 29, Grove Place, Lisson Grove, St. Marylebone. ASCENSION DAY, May 17, 1860. * * * * * LONDON: Printed by A. Schulze, 13, Poland Street. * * * * * FOOTNOTES. {11} The City of London, the wealthiest in the world, but not the best governed, is destitute of a Public Library. The babblement of SIDNEY the vain, which in 1855 triumphed, now ceases to amuse and the shrill screams of the PEACOCK are no longer heard. If you wait for a scheme that will please the _Peacocks_ and the _Sidneys_, you will never do anything at all. {13a} It is not for me to say how the wisdom of the wise slumbered on this particular Night, (May 21st, Paper Duty Repeal Bill—Lords Division). What do I see? _Mirabile dictu_! The Earl of Shaftesbury, the Premier’s Lord High Admiral of the _Sees_, not to support his Patrons on a Field night like this is really too bad! To give a vote which seriously impedes education, and prevents the cheapening of School Books and Tracts, is consistent in the extreme. But not only is it refractory, but ungrateful opposition on the part of Lord Shaftesbury. A nobleman so favoured by Lord Palmerston as to issue his _Congé d’élire_, permission to choose a Bishop, and on whose _fiat_ the Lord Chancellor appoints to Livings, ought not to have been a deserter when his vote was of so much importance. {13b} That most genial Entertainer, and by far the cleverest Lecturer ever seen in London, combining great talent, with rare common sense and worldly knowledge, ALBERT SMITH, now, alas! no more, sent me a good humoured note a few days ago, acknowledging “Who is my Neighbour?” {15} Last Autumn the sad want of knowledge of the elementary rules of economy among Operatives was _strikingly_ and ruinously displayed, and it is obvious what a handle it affords to employers to be apathetic, if not hostile to extending the Franchise. Hence the need of “more light.” {17} The Member for Sheffield is severe enough, is the Censor par excellence of small offenders—and pays full tithe of mint and anise, but with characteristic cowardice is dumb as a dog, has not one syllable of remonstrance against the titled USURPERS in the House of Lords, who would retain an iniquitous tax on the Newspaper Press.