I have a box of Library correspondence from the 1870s on my desk. Thank you, Arthur. Whilst pursuing the provenance of a few items I have come across a hand-written draft of the Library Regulations c.1870 as the Free Public Library was being established.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged" that the behaviour of clients in the reading rooms has not altered but been merely amplified over the past one hundred and forty years.
According to the draft
6. No person will be permitted to sit in the Room with his hat on - nor will any person who is intoxicated, or in a dirty condition be admitted to the Library.
8. Any visitor writing in or upon, folding down a leaf, defacing, mutilating, or otherwise injuring any book; spitting on the floor, smoking in the doorway, or in any way injuring the furniture etc: eating food or fruit; or not conducting himself with proper decorum will be excluded from the Library.
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