MR. SULLIVANasked the Secretary to the Treasury, If, notwithstanding assurances given last year that more successful means would be taken to enable readers in the British Museum to obtain books in a reasonable time after application, it is the fact that the average delay at mid-day is still an hour; and, whether, as a matter of fact, a reader on the 5th instant, having been kept an hour and three quarters waiting for a book, had to leave without obtaining it?
§ MR. W. H. SMITH, in reply, said, it must be admitted that there had been considerable delay in supplying readers with the books requested. He had been in communication with the Trustees of the British Museum on the subject; they were doing their best to remedy the inconvenience, and a considerable increase in the number of attendants had been sanctioned. But there was some difficulty in organizing the service, and the Trustees had recently appointed a subcommittee of their own body with instructions to go fully into the subject.