'But are we not man and man,' says _B_,'and have not I the same right to spend my earnings in my own way as you have to spend yours in your way? Why should I be compelled to spend as you spend? Don't you see that you are claiming more for yourself than you are allowing to me, and are supplementing your own liberty by robbing me of mine? Is this the way you promote the public good? Is this your boasted free library? I tell you it is founded upon theft and upon the violation of the most sacred thing in this world--the liberty of your fellow man. It is the embodiment of a gross injustice, and only realises the selfish purpose of a cowardly and dishonest majority.' 'We have heard all this before,' replies _A_, 'but such considerations must all give way before the public good. We are stronger than you are, and we have decided once and for all that you shall pay for a "Free" Library; don't make unnecessary resistance, or we shall have to proceed to extremities.' And, after all, the so-called Free Library is not really free--only so in name. If the penny or twopenny rate gave even the shabbiest accommodation to anything like a fair proportion of its compulsory subscribers, there would not be standing room, and the ordinary subscription libraries would disappear. According to Mr. Thos. Greenwood, who in his book on 'Free Libraries' has given a table of the daily average number of visitors at the different Free Libraries distributed up and down the country, there is only one per cent., on an average, of visitors per day of the population of the town to which the library belongs accommodated for a rate of one penny in the pound,--sometimes more, sometimes less;--but the general proportion is about one per cent. Now what do these facts mean? If it costs one penny in the pound to acommodate so few, what would it cost for a fair proportion to receive anything like a share that would be worth having? Even now it is a frequent occurrence for a reader to wait for months before he can get the novel he wants. Says Mr. George Easter, the Norwich librarian:--'Novels most read are those by Ainsworth, _Ballantyne_, _Besant_, _Braddon_, _Collins_, _Craik_, Dickens, Fenn, Grant, _Haggard_, _Henty_, _C. Kingsley_, _Kingston_, _Edna Lyall_, Macdonald, Marryat, Oliphant, Payn, Reade, Reid, Verne, Warner, _Wood_, _Worboise_, and _Young_; of those underlined (in italics) the works are nearly always out.' The fact is, the Free Library means that the many shall work and pay and the few lounge and enjoy; theoretically it is free to all, but practically it can only be used by a few.