Library invaded for the purpose of dusting.--Spring clean.---Dust to be
got rid of.--Ways of doing so.--Carefulness praised.--Bad nature of
certain books--Metal clasps and rivets.--How to dust.--Children
often injure books.--Examples.--Story of boys in a country library.
POSTSCRIPTUM.
Anecdote of book-sale in Derbyshire.
CONCLUSION.
The care that should be taken of books.--Enjoyment derived from them.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
SERVANT USING A "CAXTON" TO LIGHT THE FIRE --- _Frontispiece_,
PIRATES THROWING LIBRARY OVER-BOARD ---------- page 19
FRIARS AND THEIR ASS-LOAD -------------------- 35
BRUSHING CLOTHES IN A COLLEGE LIBRARY -------- 45
BOOKWORMS ------------------------------------ 73
RATS DESTROYING BOOKS ------------------------ 99
HOUSEHOLD FLY-DAMAGE ------------------------- 102
BOYS RAMPANT IN LIBRARY ---------------------- 141
THE ENEMIES OF BOOKS.
CHAPTER I.
FIRE.
THERE are many of the forces of Nature which tend to injure Books;
but among them all not one has been half so destructive
as Fire. It would be tedious to write out a bare list only
of the numerous libraries and bibliographical treasures which,
in one way or another, have been seized by the Fire-king as his own.
Chance conflagrations, fanatic incendiarism, judicial bonfires,
and even household stoves have, time after time, thinned the treasures
as well as the rubbish of past ages, until, probably, not one
thousandth part of the books that have been are still extant.
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