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and also advantageous to
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the shareholders agreed to pay
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Subscribers had the right to take out one book at a time by depositing one-third more than the value of it with the library-keeper. Rights could be alienated or bequeathed
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No person, even if he owned several shares, could have more than one vote, nor could a part of a subscription-right entitle the holder to any privileges. By 1772 the Society had increased to such an extent that it was thought best to incorporate it, and a charter was secured from the crown. In its preamble seven
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two
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two
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and one
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appear as petitioners, and fifty-six gentlemen, with one lady, Mrs. Anne Waddel, are named members of the corporation. The style of the latter was changed to the
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New York Society Library, and the usual corporate privileges were granted, including the right to purchase and hold real estate of the yearly value of one thousand pounds sterling. The Society is practically working under this charter to-day, the legislature of New York having confirmed it in 1789. The earliest printed catalogue known to be in existence was issued about 1758: it gives the titles of nine hundred and twenty-two volumes, with a list of members, one hundred and eighteen in all. A second catalogue followed in 1761. During the Revolution many of the volumes were scattered or destroyed. The first catalogue printed after the war enumerates five thousand volumes; these had increased in 1813 to thirteen thousand, in 1838 to twenty-five thousand, and the present number is estimated at seventy-five thousand. Down to 1795 the library was housed in the City Hall, and during the sessions of Congress was used by that body as a Congressional Library. Its first building was erected in 1795, in Nassau Street, opposite the Middle Dutch Church, and here the library remained until 1836, when, its premises becoming in demand for business purposes, it was sold, and the Society purchased a lot on the corner of Broadway and Leonard Street. A building was completed on this lot in 1840, and the library removed thither from the rooms of the Mechanics' Society in Chambers Street, where it had been placed on the sale of its property in 1836. In 1853 a third removal was made, to the Bible House, its property on Broadway being again swallowed up by the advancing tide of business. In the same year its present property on University Place was purchased, on which, two years later, in 1855, the commodious building which it now occupies was erected, the Society taking possession in May, 1856. Many features of the Society Library are unique, to be met with, perhaps, in no other organization of the kind in the world. Many of its members hold shares that have descended to them from father to son from the time of the first founders. The annual dues are placed at such a figure (ten dollars) as practically to debar people with slender purses. The scholar, however, may have the range of its treasures on paying a fee of twenty-five cents, and the stranger may enjoy the use of the library for one month on being introduced by a member. The market value of a share is now one hundred and fifty dollars, with the annual dues of ten dollars commuted, but shares may be purchased for twenty-five dollars, subject to the annual dues. The library proper occupies the whole of the second floor. On the first floor, besides the large hall, is a well-lighted drawing-room, filled with periodicals in all languages, a ladies' parlor, and a conversation-room. The library-room is a large, airy, well-lighted apartment, with a series of artistic alcoves ranged about two of its sides. Here are to be found the Winthrop Collection, comprising some three hundred curious and ancient tomes, chiefly in Latin, which formed a part of the library of John Winthrop,