Figures such as we have presented are really no guide to the worth of an individual library, or of a library system, to the people. That can be learned only by the comparison of experiences by the men who have charge of the books and their distribution, but the elements for such an analysis are wanting. The yearly use of books in 742 libraries in 1875 was 8,879,869 volumes, or from two to two and a half times the number of volumes on the shelves of the reporting libraries. Great differences exist in this respect. Few libraries are so eagerly sought as the military post library on Angel Island, California, which distributed its 772 books so often that its yearly circulation was 4,500! The Chicago Public Library, with 48,100 volumes, circulated 403,356; Boston Athenæum, with 105,000 volumes, circulated 33,000; Boston Public Library, with 299,869 volumes, circulated 758,493.
These statistics are sufficient. It is probable that the libraries of the country, costing say $16,000,000 for books, and spending more than $1,400,000 yearly, afford to the people the use of from twenty-four to thirty million volumes every year. It cannot be doubted that they form a very important factor in our social and national economy.
More than a thousand librarians are engaged in the conduct of the public libraries, many of them men of great ability and culture. There can be no doubt that their study of this important problem will result in the establishing of an intelligent and harmonious system of supplying a nation with the reading matter it requires.
John A. Church.
HOW NATIONAL BANK NOTES ARE REDEEMED.
There are few divisions in the Treasury department of the United States at Washington less known to the public, and more interesting to visitors, than that over the entrance to which is displayed the legend "National Bank Redemption Agency." It is a matter of the most common knowledge throughout the country, that the various forms of national currency and securities are by some process, popularly esteemed more or less miraculous, printed at the Treasury, and that greenbacks are by some method, presumably more within the laws of nature, redeemed there. The ordinary money-holder, who has in his pocket his tens or hundreds of legal tenders, is passably familiar with the history, past and to come, of each note. But to his national bank notes the average financier is more of a stranger. Each note, if he can read as well as reckon cash, tells him whence it cometh, but ten to one he has only the vaguest notion of whither it goeth. Hence it is that of the thousands of ejaculatory comments delivered, during the centennial summer and autumn, through the wire gate opposite to the second assortment teller's desk, at the agency, so many were of a nature tending to make that industrious clerk smile with amusement or stare in amazement.
The throngs of centennial visitors who daily passed through the halls of the Treasury saw various things at the agency to attract their notice. They saw their entrance barred by the gate above alluded to, put there for the double purpose of securing ventilation and excluding "the great unwashed"; they saw a small-sized room converted into a perfect labyrinth by means of wirework partitions; they saw in each of the apartments so set off hundreds of thousands, and even millions of dollars, in the various processes of handling in bulk, piled upon counters and tables, constructed evidently with a view to use rather than ornament; and they saw through the entrance to an adjoining room national bank notes of all denominations, passing with wonderful rapidity under the deft fingers of counters of both sexes. But what chiefly imposed upon the imagination of the country visitor were two massive safes, reaching from the floor to the ceiling. In the interests of truth, let a revelation be made to a public too prone to believe their eyes. Those safes, for at least the upper third of their ponderous height, are of inch pine boards. The crowded condition of the Treasury building renders space very valuable. A place of storage was needed for the various forms of stationery in use at the agency. The floor was already covered with desks, tables, and counters, the intricate passages between which would have defied the attempts of the Minotaur to escape; but there were at least a hundred cubic feet of space above each of the iron safes, absolutely going to waste. The genius of the officials and the skill of the departmental cabinet makers triumphed over the difficulties of the situation. As for the inconvenient height, is it not annihilated by a ladder?
By act of Congress, the Treasurer of the United States is constituted the agent of the national banks for the redemption of their notes. The agency, since July 1, 1875, is one of the divisions in his office. Regular provision is made by Congress in the appropriation bills for the salaries of the force of this division. Careful accounts are kept of every item of expense incurred during the year, and at the end of the twelvemonth the sum disbursed is apportioned among the banks according to the number of the notes of each that have been handled, and assessments are made for the several amounts. The circulation of national banks being redeemable in greenbacks, each bank is required by law to keep on deposit with the Treasurer legal tenders to the amount of five per cent. of its outstanding issue as a fund for the redemption of its notes.