Ostensibly it remained non-political: a library, reading-room and lecture-hall, for the benefit of all the townsfolk; but by a subtle process the executive authority had passed into the hands of new men with new ideas.

A mere enumeration of the committee sufficed to frighten away all who held by Church, State, and Mr.Welwyn-Baker: the Institute was no longer an Institute, but a "hot-bed." How could respectable people make use of a library which admitted works of irreligious and immoral tendency?
It was an undoubted fact (the _Mercury_ made it known) that of late there had been added to the catalogue not only the "Essays of David Hume" and that notorious book Buckle's "History of Civilization," but even a large collection of the writings of George Sand and Balzac--these latter in the original tongue; for who, indeed, would ever venture to publish an English translation?
As for the reading-room, was it not characterization enough to state that two Sunday newspapers, reeking fresh from Fleet Street, regularly appeared on the tables?
What possibility of perusing the _Standard_ or the _Spectator_ in such an atmosphere?
It was clear that the supporters of law and decency must bestir themselves to establish a new Society.

Mr.Mumbray, long prominent in the municipal and political life of the town, had already made the generous offer of a large house at a low rental--one of the ancient buildings which had been spoilt for family residence by the erection of a mill close by.
The revered Member for the borough was willing to start the new library with a gift of one hundred volumes of "sterling literature." With dissolution of Parliament in view, not a day should be lost in establishing this centre of intellectual life for right-thinking inhabitants.

It was a strange thing, a very strange thing indeed, that interlopers should have been permitted to oust the wealth and reputability of Polterham from an Institute which ought to have been one of the bulwarks of Conservatism.

Laxity in the original constitution, and a spirit of supine confidence, had led to this sad result.