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IT is evident from the numerous press cuttings which are reaching us, that we are once more afflicted with one of those periodical visitations of antagonism to Public Libraries, which occasionally assume epidemic form as the result of a succession of library opening ceremonies, or a rush of Carnegie gifts. Let a new library building be opened, or an old one celebrate its jubilee, or let Lord Avebury regale us with his statistics of crime‐diminution and Public Libraries, and immediately we have the same old, never‐ending flood of articles, papers and speeches to prove that Public Libraries are not what their original promoters intended, and that they simply exist for the purpose of circulating American “Penny Bloods.” We have had this same chorus, with variations, at regular intervals during the past twenty years, and it is amazing to find old‐established newspapers, and gentlemen of wide reading and knowledge, treating the theme as a novelty. One of the latest gladiators to enter the arena against Public Libraries, is Mr. J. Churton Collins, who contributes a forcible and able article, on “Free Libraries, their Functions and Opportunities,” to the Nineteenth Century for June, 1903. Were we not assured by its benevolent tone that Mr. Collins seeks only the betterment of Public Libraries, we should be very much disposed to resent some of the conclusions at which he has arrived, by accepting erroneous and misleading information. As a matter of fact, we heartily endorse most of Mr. Collins' ideas, though on very different grounds, and feel delighted to find in him an able exponent of what we have striven for five years to establish, namely, that Public Libraries will never be improved till they are better financed and better staffed.

This is an interpretive study in the sociology of literature that explores Aeschylus’s trilogy of dramatic plays known as the Oresteia. The plays dramatize a normative argument that exemplifies the dialectical struggle between domination and democracy. Social relations are characterized by agon (struggle), domination, and contradictions brought about by learning through suffering. These social realities reflect the primary theoretical claim of radical interactionism (RI) that domination and conflict are profound, pervasive, and perennial. On the interpersonal level, the plays dramatize structure, agency, role-taking, and the Thomas Axiom. As the first drama to interrogate an inchoate polity as an object of the public’s gaze, the Oresteia anticipates the sociological importance of critical consciousness, collective decision-making, political institutions, moral and, ultimately, cultural transformation. Despite a social context of slavery, imperialism, xenophobia, ostracism, misogyny, exclusivity, and constant warfare, the Oresteia foreshadows Western civilization’s ideals of legal-rational domination, citizenship, human rights, persuasion, and justice that have been imperfectly institutionalized to reduce surplus domination. The West still struggles to realize those ideals.

The experimental parliamentary subsidy on knights' fees and freehold incomes from lands and rents of 1431 was the only English direct lay tax of the Middle Ages which broke down. As such, this subsidy has a clear historiographical significance, yet previous scholars have tended to overlook it on the grounds that parliament's annulment act of 1432 mandated the destruction of all fiscal administrative evidence. Many county assessments from 1431–1432 do, however, survive and are examined for the first time in this article as part of a detailed assessment of the fiscal and administrative context of the knights' fees and incomes tax. This impost constituted a royal response to excess expenditures associated with Henry VI's “Coronation Expedition” of 1429–1431, the scale of which marked a decisive break from the fiscal-military strategy of the 1420s. Widespread confusion regarding whether taxpayers ought to pay the feudal or the non-feudal component of the 1431 subsidy characterized its botched administration. Industrial scale under-assessment, moreover, emerged as a serious problem. Officials' attempts to provide a measure of fiscal compensation by unlawfully double-assessing many taxpayers served to increase administrative confusion and resulted in parliament's annulment act of 1432. This had serious consequences for the crown's finances, since the regime was saddled with budgetary and debt problems which would ultimately undermine the solvency of the Lancastrian state.

In a previous article we have called attention to the danger of eating tinned and bottled vegetables which have been coloured by the addition of salts of copper and we have urged upon the public that no such preparations should be purchased without an adequate guarantee that they are free from copper compounds. Copper poisoning, however, is not the only danger to which consumers of preserved foods are liable. Judging from the reports of cases of irritant poisoning which appear with somewhat alarming frequency in the daily press, and from the information which we have been at pains to obtain, there can be no question that the occurrence of a large number of these cases is to be attributed to the ingestion of tinned foods which has been improperly prepared or kept. It is not to be supposed that the numerous cases of illness which have been ascribed to the use of tinned foods were all cases of metallic poisoning brought about by the action of the contents of the tins upon the metal and solder of the latter. The evidence available does not show that a majority of the cases could be put down to this cause alone; but it must be admitted that the evidence is in most instances of an unsatisfactory and inconclusive character. It has become a somewhat too common custom to put forward the view that so‐called “ptomaine” poisoning is the cause of the mischief; and this upon very insufficient evidence. While there is no doubt that the presence in tinned goods of some poisonous products of decomposition or organic change very frequently gives rise to dangerous illness, so little is known of the chemical nature and of the physiological effects of “ptomaines” that to obtain conclusive evidence is in all cases most difficult, and in many, if not in most, quite impossible. A study of the subject leads to the conclusion that both ptomaine poisoning and metallic poisoning—also of an obscure kind—have, either separately or in conjunction, produced the effects from time to time reported. In view of the many outbreaks of illness, and especially, of course, of the deaths which have been attributed to the eating of bad tinned foods it is of the utmost importance that some more stringent control than that which can be said to exist at present should be exercised over the preparation and sale of tinned goods. In Holland some two or three years ago, in consequence partly of the fact that, after eating tinned food, about seventy soldiers were attacked by severe illness at the Dutch manœuvres, the attention of the Government was drawn to the matter by Drs. VAN HAMEL ROOS and HARMENS, who advocated the use of enamel for coating tins. It appears that an enamel of special manufacture is now extensively used in Holland by the manfacturers of the better qualities of tinned food, and that the use of such enamelled tins is insisted upon for naval and military stores. This is a course which might with great advantage be followed in this country. While absolute safety may not be attainable, adequate steps should be taken to prevent the use of damaged, inferior or improper materials, to enforce cleanliness, and to ensure the adoption of some better system of canning.

A classification scheme by its notation does not do more than locate the subject; therefore, after the books are classified according to the scheme adopted, a secondary arrangement must be provided for the shelves, whereby books in a given class may be arranged in some order to accelerate finding and to differentiate one book from another. There are several methods in vogue of so arranging books in a given class, but one's choice will be, to some extent, determined by the System of issue in use. The usual methods are by:—

The only comprehensive list of British medical libraries hitherto available has been that in The Aslib directory 1928, and there is an extended account of those in London in Reginald Rye, The students' guide to the libraries of London (3rd ed., 1927), pp. 362–77. The new list, here put forward, is intended to bring the information from those two books of reference up to date, after nearly twenty years. British libraries are briefly listed among ‘Medical libraries outside North America’ in the Medical Library Association's A handbook of medical library practice, ed. Janet Doe, Chicago, American library association 1943, chapter 1, appendix 2, pages 41–64. The meagre information in that list, if contrasted with the detailed documentation of American and Canadian libraries in successive issues of the American medical directory, accentuates the need for us to know ourselves better. Several, perhaps many, medical librarians have had to compile lists of kindred libraries for their own convenience. A list which I had thus prepared seemed to Aslib to offer adequate basis for a Directory of British medical libraries, and in order to complete it Aslib issued a questionnaire in the autumn of 1944 to libraries known to possess medical collections and to hospitals, medical societies, and medical institutions throughout the British Isles. The information obtained from the generous response to this questionnaire is epitomized in the list which follows. I am responsible for all omissions and errors and I hope that those who detect any will supply corrections and additions so that this preliminary list may be revised and become a definitive Directory.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.