was the first one of the kind in the country, having been started about the beginning of the 18th century.  Old records of this library still exist, showing that citizens voted so many skins to its support.  Probably the most valuable possession of the present library are its files of Charleston newspapers, dating from 1732 to the present time, including three files covering the War of 1812, and two covering the Civil War.  These files are consulted by persons from all over the United States, for historical material.  The library has recently moved into a good modern building.  In the old building there was a separate entrance at the back for ladies, and it is only lately that ladies have been allowed full membership in the Library Society, and have entered by the front door.  The former custom, I suppose, represented certain old-school sentiments as to “woman’s place” such as I find expressed in “Reminiscences of Charleston,” by Charles Fraser, published in 1854.  Declares Mr. Fraser: 

The ambition for literary distinction is now very prevalent with the sex.  But without any disposition to undervalue their claims, whenever I hear of a female traveler clambering the Alps, or describing the classic grounds of Greece and Italy, publishing her musings in the holy land, or revealing the mysteries of the harem, I cannot but think that for every success obtained some appropriate duty has been neglected.

I except the poetess, for hers are the effusions of the heart and the imagination, prompted by nature and uttered because they are irrepressible.  Many females travel for the purpose of writing and publishing books—­whilst Mrs. Heman’s, Mrs. Osgood’s, and Mrs. Sigourney’s volumes may be regarded as grateful offerings to the muse in return for her inspiration.

It is hard not to be irritated, even now, with the man who wrote that, especially in view of the fact that the two most interesting books to come out of the Carolinas of recent years are both by women:  one of them being “Charleston—­the Place and the People,” by Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel, a volume any chapter of which is worth the whole of Mr. Fraser’s “Reminiscences,” and the other “A Woman Rice-Planter,” by “Patience Pennington,” otherwise Mrs. John Julius Pringle (nee Alston), who lives on her plantation near Georgetown, South Carolina.

The Carolina Jockey Club subscribed regularly to the support of the library, and now that that club is no more, its chief memorial may be said to rest there.  This club was probably the first racing club in the country, and it is interesting to note that the old cement pillars from the Washington Race Course at Charleston were taken, when that course was abandoned, and set up at the Belmont Park course, near New York.