remarkable coincidences must be expected to occur by pure chance. Hence, before we can conclude that the apparition of a dying person-when it cannot be attributed to anxiety, &c., in the percipient-is in any way the effect of the distant event, we have to ascertain by exact comparison of numbers that such coincidences are decidedly more frequent than they would be if purely accidental. And this we can only show conclusively by an extensive statistical investigation, as will appear from a little consideration of the figures already obtained.

So far as our census has yet gone, about II per cent. of the answers to our questions are affirmative, namely, 727 out of 6,481, and particulars respecting their experiences have been sent to us by 606 people. The accounts received include some 470 visual experiences, but, of course, many of these are very vague and indefinite compared with those that I have quoted. Again, 99 of their experiences were believed by the percipients to be coincidental; or, in other words, about 15 people in 1,000 of those who have hitherto answered our question report themselves to have seen, heard, or felt something not due to any external physical cause, and which seemed to correspond remarkably with something happening to an absent person. But this number includes all kinds of coincidences— well-established ones and doubtful ones, slight ones and important ones, clear ones and vague ones-and for our calculation of chances we must limit ourselves to clearly-defined cases of coincidences admitting of close numerical comparison with a corresponding class of non-coincidental hallucinations. The class best adapted for this purpose is that of apparitions of dying persons recognised at the time, the number of which must be compared with the number of apparitions of living people similarly recognised and not coinciding with any special event.

But scarcely a fourth of our 99 coincidental experiences are apparitions occurring within twelve hours of the death of the person seen, and when we further exclude those where the coincidence was not clearly made out, where the experience was a little vague, or where the hallucination may have been due to anxiety, we reduce our number to 13.

Of non-coincidental apparitions of living persons our 6,48 I

answers yield 97. Now, of course, a proportion of 13 apparitions within twelve hours of the death, out of every 110 apparitions of living and dying people, would be very much beyond what chance would give. But the numbers are too small for us to rely on their giving us the true proportion. Another 6,000 people taken at random might be found to have seen fewer apparitions at the time of death and a small deduction from 13 would make a very material difference in the proportion.

It is for this reason that I am anxious, if possible, to collect a much larger number of answers, and therefore to obtain further assistance in the work. If, indeed, we fail to get the number we hope for, our work will still not have been thrown away. We shall know approximately the proportion of persons who have these experiences to those who have not, and shall have obtained much useful information about the experiences themselves, and we shall be able to make some calculation as to the relative frequency of the coincidental and non-coincidental hallucinations. But it would be

a great advantage to obtain the broader basis for calculation at which I am aiming.

Before I conclude, my readers may expect to hear something about those apparitions which do not represent living or dying people. The great majority (413) of the 472 visual hallucinations so far described in our census are of the human form. Of these about half are unrecognised and of the remainder two-thirds are appearances of living people, and one-third appearances of those who have been dead for more than twelve hours. Recognised apparitions of the dead are, therefore, the least frequent of all kinds of human apparitions; a result which quite agrees with that of previous inquiries made by the Society for Psychical Research, but which would, perhaps, hardly have been expected before investigation. In conclusion, I will ask all who are willing to help in the present inquiry to communicate with me. Letters addressed, Professor

Sidgwick, Cambridge, will reach mc.

HENRY SIDGWICK.

N°

FREE LIBRARIES.*

O one now denies the advantage of free libraries. The only objection ever raised to them now is on the score of expense. But we do not grudge the cost of schools, and the free library is the school for the grown-up. Moreover, I doubt whether either the one or the other is really an expense.

A great part, at any rate, of what we spend in books we save in prisons and police. Only a fraction of the crime of the country arises from deliberate wickedness or irresistible temptation; the great sources of crime are drink and ignorance.

There is a general impression that our schools are very expensive, and that the cost is increasing. I think, however, it may be shown that ignorance, in reality, costs more than knowledge. What are the facts? The annual cost of elementary schools in England and Wales amounts, in round numbers, to £8,500,000, but out of this sum the parents provided £1,860,000, and subscriptions amounted to £746,000, leaving something under £6,000,000 as contributed from rates and taxes.

To this must be added the Science and Art Department, £500,000; Museums, &c., £250,000; and Public Libraries, £150,000 -say together, £7,000,000.

Now let us look at pauperism. The nominal poor-rate includes several other matters, but the part devoted to the maintenance of the poor is no less than £8,500,000.

The cost of police, prisons, and criminals amounts to over £4,000,000. The police, of course, perform various useful functions besides protecting us against criminals. On the other hand, the cost of the criminal population is not to be measured by the mere

* Being a speech delivered in opening a Free Library at Rotherhithe.

cost of police and prisons, and the real expense to the country far exceeds that sum.

Now let us consider what our expenditure in these directions might have been if it had not been for our expenditure on education. First, let me take the criminal statistics. Up to 1877 the number of prisoners showed a tendency to increase. In that year the average number was 20,800. Since then it has steadily decreased, and now is only 14,700. It has, therefore, diminished in round numbers by one-third. But we must remember that the population has been steadily increasing. Since 1870 it has increased by one-third. If our criminals had increased in the same proportion, they would have been 28,000 instead of 14,000, or just double.

In that case, then, our expenditure on police and prisons would have been at least £8,000,000.

In juvenile crime the decrease is even more satisfactory. In 1856 the number of young persons committed for indictable offences was 14,000; in 1866 it had fallen to 10,000; in 1876 to 7,000; in 1881 to 6,000; and the last figures I have seen to 5,100!

Turning to the poor-rate statistics we find that in 1870 the number of paupers to every thousand of the population was over 47. It had been as high as 52. Since then it has steadily fallen to 22 as an average, and in a parenthesis I may say I am proud to find that in the Metropolis we are substantially below the average. The proportion, therefore, is less than one-half of what it used to bc. Supposing it had remained as it was our expenditure would have been £16,000,000 instead of £8,000,000, or £8,000,000 more than the present amount.

Of course I am aware that various allowances would have to be made, and that these figures cannot claim any scientific accuracy, but I believe that the additions would be larger than the deductions, and am convinced that the £7,000,000 of public funds spent annually on education save us a much larger sum in other ways.

I have dwelt on this because the question of expense is the one argument generally used against public libraries. But I need hardly assert that I should be one of the last to look on this as a mere matter of £.s.d.

I doubt very much, therefore, whether free libraries really cost

the ratepayers anything; whether they do not save more than the penny rate. But how small a part is this of the benefit they confer ! I have put it first, as an answer to the objection of expense, but it is not, of course, the real argument to my mind in favour of establishing free libraries.

It is because public libraries add so greatly to the happiness of the poor that I rejoice at their establishment. There is but little amusement in the lives of the very poor. I have been good-humouredly laughed at more than once for having expressed the opinion that in the next generation the great readers would be our artisans and mechanics. But is not the continued increase in free libraries an argument in support of my contention? Before a free library can be started, a free popular vote must be taken, and we know that the clergy and lawyers, the doctors and the mercantile men, form but a small fraction of the voters. The free libraries are called into being by the artisan and the small shopkeeper, and it is by them that they are mainly used.

Books are peculiarly necessary to the working men in our towns. Their life is one of much monotony. The savage has a far more varied existence. He must watch the habits of the game which he hunts, their migrations and feeding grounds; he must know where and how to fish; every month brings him some change of occupation and of food. He must prepare his weapons and build his own house. Even the lighting of a fire, so easy now, is to him a matter of labour and knack.

The agricultural labourer turns his hand to many things. He ploughs and sows, mows and reaps. He plants at one season, and uses the bill-hook and the axe at another. He looks after the sheep, and pigs, and cows. To hold the plough, to lay a fence, or tie up a sheaf is by no means so easy as it looks.

It is said of Wordsworth that a stranger having on one occasion asked to see his study, the maid said: "This is master's room, but he studies in the fields." The agricultural labourer learns a great deal in the fields. He knows much more than we give him credit for, only it is field-learning, not book-learning—and none the worse for that.

But the man who works in a shop or manufactory has a much