Persons of distinction may be elected honorary members by a vote of three-fourths of the members of the board of direction.  The board of direction is composed of a president, vice-president, treasurer, secretary, and eight directors, the former elected annually, the directors four for one year and four for two years.  There is also a book committee, which reports one month previous to each annual meeting.  From the last annual report of the board it appears that in April, 1883, there were 198,858 books in the library.  The total number of members at the same time was 3136, and the honorary members (71), the editors using the library (54), and the Clinton Hall stockholders (1701) swelled the total number of those availing themselves of its privileges to 4962.  The total circulation for the year was 112,375 volumes, of which 27,549 were distributed from the branch office, No. 2 Liberty Place, and 1695 books were delivered by messengers at members’ residences.  In 1870 the circulation was 234,120, the large falling off—­over one-half—­being due to the era of cheap books.  The department of fiction, of course, suffers most.  This in 1870 formed about seventy per cent. of the circulation.  In 1883 the number of works of fiction circulated was 53,937,—­not quite fifty per cent.

To gain a fair idea of the popularity of the library one should spend a mid-winter Saturday afternoon and evening with the librarian and his busy assistants.  Early in the afternoon numbers of young ladies leave the shopping and fashionable thoroughfares up-town and throng the library-room.  The attendants, all young men, work with increased animation under the stimulus.  Books fly from counter to alcoves and return, messenger-boys dart hither and thither, the fair patrons thumb the catalogues and chatter in sad defiance of the rules.  They are long in making their selections, and appeal for aid to the librarians.  But the last of this class of visitors departs before the six-o’clock dinner or tea, and the attendants have a respite for an hour.  At seven the real rush begins, with the advent of the clerks and other patrons employed in store or office during the day, each intent on supplying himself with reading-matter for the next day.  From this hour until the closing at nine the librarians are as busy as bees:  there is a continual running from counter to alcove and from gallery to gallery.  In some of the reports of the librarian interesting data are given of the tastes of readers and the popularity of books.  Fiction, as we have seen, leads; but there is a growing taste for scientific and historical works.  Buckle, Mill, and Macaulay are favorites, and Tyndall, Huxley, and Lubbock have many readers.  The theft of its books is a serious drain on the library each year, but the destruction of its rare and valuable works of reference is still more provoking.  Common gratitude, it might seem, would deter persons admitted to the privileges of its alcoves from injuring its