The basement provides for a store-room, a work-room, and reading-room, which opens off Newton lane.  The public will have full access to this room.  It will specially accommodate the workingmen.  The late Honorable Wm. H. Vose left $1,000, the income of which is to be used in supplying suitable papers for this room.  There are also in the basement a coal room, and the boiler which heats the whole building.  On entering the building one stands in a large hall, on the right of which is a reading-room for magazines, and on the left is a large reference room, and a winding stairway by which the second story is reached.  Across the whole rear of the building is the library room, which is high enough to admit of galleries.  Ample provisions are thus made for all the possible future needs of the city.  In the second story is the art gallery.  Around it are five other rooms, which can be devoted to any of the uses such an institution may require.  When completed the inside will be finished in hard woods, and according to modern ideas of taste and elegance.  The art gallery will be a model of its kind.

With a collection of books and of works of art to match the thought of the donor expressed in the building the library will be a lasting blessing to our city.  A gift so timely, and so well adapted to the needs of a city like Fitchburg, with its population of young people, could not fail to commend itself, and win the gratitude of every right-minded citizen.  Therefore, any one who will stand in front of this building for an hour, and listen to the remarks made by those who look up to it as they pass, will readily learn how deep a hold on the esteem of all classes of the citizens of Fitchburg this generous act has given Mr. Wallace.

Lest my estimate of Mr. Wallace may seem extravagant to those who do not know him, I add the following from the pen of Professor H.M.  Tyler of Smith College, Northampton, formerly Mr. Wallace’s pastor.  He writes:—­

“It gives me great pleasure to send a few lines in answer to your note, though it would be easy for a critic to say that I have long since passed the point where I could give a cold-blooded opinion of Mr. Wallace.  I can write only from the stand-point of warm friendship and cannot be cold in my respect and admiration for my friend.  Mr. Wallace is pre-eminently a business man; to this the chief energy of his life has been directed.  It seems an impertinence for me to pass judgment upon his career, but I have loved to study him in his business habits.  By his affability, correctness, and fairness in all his work he has succeeded marvellously in attaching every one to himself.  All instinctively gravitate toward him, and never wish to break off their association with him.  I never knew a man so master of his own ways and yet so universally popular.  People love to be influenced or even controlled by him.  His office would be the centre of any community in which he should be placed.  All men love to fasten