WE feel it our duty to say a few words for the purpose of rectifying an abuse to which our attention was called some time ago, and which has been rapidly increasing within the past few weeks. Quite a number of the students who frequent the Reading-Room have shown their eagerness to pluck the fruit of the tree of knowledge by cutting from magazines and papers whatever has appeared to them as useful information, or has simply struck their fancy.

This mode of proceeding is of course extremely gratifying to the remainder, who, after waiting for the work of devastation to be completed by these Vandals, are obliged to chew the cud of sweet and bitter fancy as consolation for the loss of the best parts of their reading matter. It is astonishing to us how any man who has the least respect for himself can filch articles from papers, knowing all the while that he is depriving other men of their share in the privileges to which, as members of the Reading-Room Association, they are entitled. Furthermore, this mutilation spoils not only the piece from which the extract is taken, but also whatever there may be on the other side of the leaf; so that the readable articles of a magazine which happens to be particularly attractive, after passing through the hands of these rapacious devourers, are exceedingly few in number, and the magazine as a whole is only fit to sell for waste paper.