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IT is hardly an exaggeration to say that the general public knows nothing about reading in prison—and very little of the conditions of life to‐day in, let us say, Wormwood Scrubs, Nottingham, or Holloway. Nor is it easy to obtain details of the prison libraries which are already in being, for only the Commissioners, the officials (including the educational advisers now attached to most of the large prisons), and those for whom they exist, have much practical knowledge of their present status or future possibilities.

READERS of The English Review, in the good days when literature took precedence of politics in its pages, may recall a fascinating account of Richard de Bury, author of Philobiblon (1345), an ardent book collector, and the founder of an early lending library. The writer of the article quoted, among other lyrical passages in praise of books, one that seems specially apposite in our own distressful times:—“In books I find the dead as if they are alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books warlike things are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace.”

MISS Clara Grant's Reminiscences (privately published under the title of Farthing Bundles) will be of equal interest to educationalists and social workers. For more than thirty years she has been a teacher in slum districts of London; and Fern Street Settlement, which she founded in 1907, and still directs, “for the fifteen poorest streets in the Bow Common area,” is famous as a unique channel of personal service centred round the school.

TO the lover of books Paris is one of the most charming of cities, for almost from time immemorial she has had bookstalls and book‐sellers, and for two or three centuries at least there have been delightful open‐air book boxes ranged along the quais, especially those from the Pont Royale to the Pont Notre Dame, with their actual interests and potential treasures. The bookstall keepers are of many types and of both sexes. Some are good natured philosophers who, plying their trade for the sake of a living, are always open to bargain if one spots a treasure that one desires to possess. Others are more serious salesmen who well know the value of their wares, unless perchance some rara avis has got into their possession which is in value beyond their ken. Yet others are wonderful scholars, who not only know the value of the books, but love books for their own sake, and actually suffer pangs of regret to part with them when a customer comes along. These are mines of information regarding editions, title pages, colophons, and all the small data which may make a book extremely valuable, and without which the book may be worth next‐door to nothing. The women book‐sellers, mostly buxom dames with smiling faces and bright alert eyes, are keener over a bargain when selling their books than their male confreres, and though often possessing expert knowledge have a tendency—some of them—to over‐estimate the value of their possessions, and to say “But yes, monsieur, this is a rare edition,” when one questions the price, and knows quite well that there is nothing at all special about the book.

IF you are as tired hearing about the function of the library as we teacher‐librarians are of hearing about the function of the school I shall do well not to make any reference to it: for it seems that if there is a wave of juvenile crime, the school is not fulfilling its function: if business men cannot get typists to add and spell accurately, the school is not fulfilling its function: if road accidents increase, if the churches are empty, if the landworkers are drifting to the towns—the school isn't fulfilling its function. Frankly, one looks forward to the time when with the help of the county libraries the school will begin to shoulder all its responsibilities!

THE question is frequently being raised: Why did the greatest historical event of late, the European war, not essentially inspire modern fiction ? That this colossal drama of homicidal glory and appalling horrors, but also of bravery and heroism, gave birth but to a few epic and dramatic creations, seems in fact surprising.

IN all this rush for bargains in first editions, and the feverish anxiety on the part of many collectors, pseudo and genuine, there is a natural desire to look ahead, and to discover the big writers of to‐morrow, because it is their books of to‐day that will be the rare and valuable items of to‐morrow. But there's the conundrum It is easy enough, if we are rich enough, to buy, shall we say, Arnold Bennett's Old Wives Tale for £50 or more, because we are constantly learning how few copies there are about, and because it is really a good first edition to have. The same may be said of the rare things of Shaw, Barrie, Wells, Galsworthy and others. To select an unknown writer, and to say to oneself: his first book is going to be a notable and closely sought for book to‐morrow, is, indeed, a difficult task which few of us can encompass. Yet it is done. There are those happy ones who said it about Shaw in his early days, of Tomlinson in his, and they now possess real worth in two ways. I do not ever want to forget the literary value of these, and other writers: there is, indeed, value there; but there is the other way—the economic value. Some wiseacres, in their shrewd vision and intelligent and intellectual anticipation, hug themselves in bibliographic glee in that these two ways are theirs. Fads and fashions, conventions and popularisms, come up and pass these good people by. They blazed their own trail, and, in their quiet and contented way, they proceeded to their own contented end, and now they may justifiably revel in their own fore‐sightedness. Blessed are they among the growing army of book collectors.

IT was unlikely that I should remember, even when in Boston, Massachusetts for the first time, that there was a pond called Walden, presumably near, and good for rod and line. Walden is a familiar name, but it suggests only some rare ideas—ideas so rare, you may retort, that they could not embody so much as an image of a pond. That may be so—I bear in mind my schoolmaster's comment on Thoreau. The comment was “all moonshine.” I defend myself with the suggestion that moonshine is all right. It is said that phases of it are so admired by everybody at times that they will swear it is plain daylight; they will go as far as to declare, of their particular lunar phase, that if you can't see things plainer by its light then you are probably a traitor or an atheist. We know that in our rough island story there was once a Hidden Hand, obvious enough by moonlight, but invisible by day. I am all for freedom in moonshine.

APART FROM FRANCE, Great Britain is one of the most centralised states of the Western European democracies; all roads lead to Whitehall and Westminster, and the pattern is repeated in town halls at the lower tier of local government. However, as a contrast, and perhaps as compensation for this centralism, British society has completely contradictory and counter‐vailing tendencies. At the grass roots Britain is a nation of associations, clubs, fellowships, societies and local organisaitions of various kinds. For the purposes of this article I will call them all societies. We are all familiar with national societies through G P Henderson and S P A Henderson's book, Directory of British associations (edition 6, cbd Research Ltd, Beckenham, Kent, 1980), but almost nothing is heard of their local equivalents. It is this phenomenon, and its implication for libraries, that I want to discuss.