BOOKS, we were taught at school, are the precious life-blood of their authors: but we do not remember having been told how to take care of the books that hold that 'precious life blood.' If you have had anything to do with lending libraries, you will know just how badly some people (without a thought to do harm) will treat the books they borrow ; not because they are not theirs, but just because it docs not seem to them to matter how books are handled. How many kindly folk, too. willing lenders of books, have had their generosity damped and even destroyed by the unkind treatment accorded tho books they have loaned.