WHAT IS WANTED.

Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette, Volume VI, Issue 278, 19 June 1886, Page 2

WHAT IS WANTED.

[communicated.]

When one sits down to consider the needs of our growing district he cannot fail to be surprised on finding how rapidly they seem to increase and multiply. No sooner have we chronicled and laid aside one thing than others come unbidden to the surface like the snow drops and the crocuses of early spring. A Circulating Library is badly wanted. Why we have never yet obtained such a priceless boon nobody can properly understand. On every hand, around us, localities are to be found with not a fifth part of the population of the Lyell and not a tenth part of its possibilities, but which nevertheless has possessed for years past libraries more or less extensive and important. Books are important, eyen though they be few in number, as long as they are of the right sort. Is not even the most tiny ray ot light better than chaos, and is not half-a-loaf better than no bread ? Of course they are, and so the importance of sound healthy literature should be apparent to all. How then are we to compass the desired object. Nothing is more simple. Let us first of all get our fireextinguishing apparatus placed on a sure and solid foundation, and then on the time worn principle that the more we do the more we are able to do, let us bend our united energies as one man to the establishment of a public library for Lyell town and district. Its local habitation may be the State School-room, that is with the sanction of the local school committee, and its name the Lyell District Public Library, the school teacher for the time to be librarian during his incumbancy, of course for a consideration. Let a number of the most intelligent and public spirited citizens take immediate and concerted action, send round subscription papers to ascertain how much money can be obtained for a start. To the money so collected, and to the annual income arising from subscriptions of readers, Government will on cause shewn add an annual subsidy ot pound for pound, and will on application supply copies of all the parliamentary papers &c. in print, and Hansard, bills, and statutes, as they are issued from the press in Wellington ; while with the cash in hand the committee, to be elected by the subscribers, will from time to time make additions to the stock of books for general perusal, catalogues will be procurable for the use of subscribers, and everything should go along in first rate style. Scandal and gossip will greatly disappear from our moral atmosphere, like clouds, d irkness, fogs, and mists from the material atmosphere. To make a long story short, why should the Lyell be behind Hampden in this matter. That place has a flourishing public library whilst this place has none. Citizens this should not be. Bus in Urbe.