President, Hon. JOHN BIGELOW. First Vice-President, Rt. Rev. HENRY C. POTTER, D.D. Second Vice-President, JOHN S. KENNEDY, Esq. Secretary, GEORGE L. RIVES, Esq., 32 Nassau Street. Treasurer, EDWARD KING, Esq., Union Trust Company, 80 Broadway. THE REGULATIONS HE Astor Building, 40 Lafayette Place, and the Lenox Building, Fifth Avenue and 70th Street, are open daily, Sundays and legal holidays excepted, from 9 A. M. until 6 P. M. The Reading rooms and the Exhibition rooms are free to all persons; but children under the age of fifteen years must be accompanied by an adult. In the Reading room of each Library Building certain shelves are set apart for books of reference, which readers are allowed to take down and examine at their pleasure. For all other books an application must be made by filling out and signing one of the blanks provided for the purpose. Published monthly by The New York Public Library, No. 40 Lafayette Place, New York City Subscription One Dollar a year, single numbers Ten Cents Entered as second-class matter at the New York, N. Y., Post Office, January 30, 1897 During the month of April there were received at the Library by purchase 1,163 volumes and 702 pamphlets, and by gift 1,160 volumes and 3,889 pamphlets. There were catalogued 6,683 volumes and 5,285 pamphlets, for which purpose 19,412 cards and 1,864 slips for the printer were written. The following table shows the number of readers and the number of volumes consulted in both the Astor and Lenox branches of the Library during the month: Among the important gifts received this month were 82 volumes and 574 pamphlets from the Boston Medical Library; 24 volumes and 501 pamphlets from Miss French; 23 volumes from the University of Ghent; 2 volumes from Harvard University; 75 volumes and 92 pamphlets from Major Henry Hammond; 15 volumes from Indiana University Library; 1 volume, a book of charms, from J. S. Kennedy; 17 volumes and 53 pamphlets from Lafayette College; 21 volumes of the New York. Herald, covering the period of the Rebellion, from Cyrus J. Lawrence; 9 volumes from the Secretary of State of North Dakota; 2 volumes from the New York Labor News; 27 volumes from the Secretary of State of South Carolina; 81 volumes from the St. Louis Public Library; 5 volumes and 2 pamphlets from the South Carolina Railroad Commissioners; 5 volumes and 15 pamphlets of rare South Carolina publications from John Peyre Thomas; 40 volumes from the Wisconsin State Historical Society; 4 volumes from Hawaii, and 16 of the British Colonies have sent in a large number of their recent publications. TWO LETTERS OF JEFFERSON TO JOHN PAGE, 1766-1803. (From the original autographs in the New York Public Library.) ANNAPOLIS, May. 25. 1766. DEAR PAGE I received your last by T. Nelson whom I luckily met on my road hither. surely never did small hero experience greater misadventures than I did on the first two or three days of my travelling. twice did my horse run away with me and greatly endanger the breaking my neck on the first day. on the second I drove two hours through as copious a rain as ever I have seen, without meeting with a single house to which I could repair for shelter. on the third in going through Pamunkey, being unacquainted with the ford, I passed through water so deep as to run over the cushion as I sat on it, and to add to the danger, at that instant one wheel mounted a rock which I am confident was as high as the axle, and rendered it necessary for me to exercise all my skill in the doctrine of gravity, in order to prevent the center of gravity from being left unsupported the consequence of which would according to Bob. Carter's opinion have been the corruition of myself, chair and all into the water. whether that would have been the case or not, let the learned determine: it was not convenient for me to try the experiment at that time, and I therefore threw my whole weight on the mounted wheel and escaped the danger. I confess that on this occasion I was seised with a violent hydrophobia. I had the pleasure of passing two or three days on my way hither at the two Will. Fitzhugh's and Colo. Harrison's where were S. Potter, P. Stith, and Ben Harrison, since which time I have seen no face known to me before, except Capt. Mitchell's who is here.but I will now give you some account of what I have seen in this metropolis. the assembly happens to be sitting at this time. their upper and lower house, as they call them, sit in different houses. I went into the lower, sitting in an old courthouse, which, judging from it's form and appearance, was built in the year one. I was surprised on approaching it to hear as great a noise and hubbub as you will usually observe at a publick meeting of the planters in Virginia. the first object which struck me after my entrance was the figure of a little old man dressed but indifferently, with a yellow queüe wig on, and mounted in the judge's chair. this the gentleman who walked with me informed me was the speaker, a man of a very fair character, but who by the bye, has very little the air of a speaker. at one end of the justices' bench stood a man whom in another place I should from his dress and phis have taken for Goodall the lawyer in Williamsburgh, reading a bill then before the house with a schoolboy tone and an abrupt pause at every half dozen words. this I found to be the clerk of the assembly. the mob (for such was their appearance) sat covered on the justices' and lawyers' benches, and were divided into little clubs amusing themselves in the common chit chat way. I was surprised to see them address the speaker without rising from their seats, and three, four, and five at a time without being checked. when a motion was made, the speaker instead of putting the question in the usual form, only asked the gentlemen. |