Quiet, well-behaved persons of literary tastes are not the only patrons of the City libraries. These are undoubtedly in the majority, but there are others whose almost daily presence is an annoyance to officers and visitors, a source of loss to the institutions themselves, and a cause of constant watchfulness on the part of the Police. They may be generally characterized as "cranks," thieves, and vandals. The reading-room of the Cooper Union is a popular resort for eccentric people. Admission is free, and each visitor who behaves himself is given a check and passed in. The check is returned on leaving the room. It serves as a record of the number of patrons daily, and, as it must be presented in exchange for a book, and obtained again before passing out, it is not so easy to rob the library. "Cranks" are very fond of Cooper Union, and it is estimated that most of the harmless lunatics at large in the City at one time or another have found their way there. Occasionally they become very offensive and have to be ejected. They have the pleasing peculiarity of talking to themselves with such vigor as to be heard all over the room. They take offense easily, imagine everybody is opposed to them in some way and disposed to injure them, and often get into hot water with visitors who are disposed to answer insults with a blow. Many of these "cranks" have received a good education, but trouble, disease, or dissipation has clouded their minds. They require more waiting on at the hands of the attendants than any other class, and usually have some hobby about which they read omnivorously. There used to be an old German who, enveloped in a strong odor of garlic, dropped in at the Astor Library daily. His clothes were unkempt and ragged, and his hair was dressed in the Celestial fashion. He pretended to be a titled personage of great learning, and would devour Goethe day after day and cover the tables with little pieces of dirty paper on which he scribbled mysterious characters. There was also a Portuguese who would call for volumes of Lope de Vega every day and pore over only a single page in the course of hours. The genial librarian considers such people "excrescences on the tree of knowledge."

      Whenever a storm arises there is a lively rush of curious persons to the hospitable precincts of Cooper Union. The reading-room affords shelter from the rain or snow, stud wanderers who cannot read a line bend over the printed page as studiously as more fortunate visitors. Tramps leave the shelter late in the afternoon in time to look around for the night's lodging. They are fond of the more obscure portions of the room, where a sly nap may perhaps be indulged in without discovery. Sleeping in the reading-room, however, is not confined to tramps, and among the better classes, it is asserted, most of these offenders are Germans. The national beverage cannot be alone to blame, as young German boys have been observed to have the same weakness. When the sleepers are awakened, they will invariably maintain with solemn earnestness that they "only closed their eyes for a moment." Drunken men are drawn as by a magnet to Cooper Union, and are frequently caught crawling up stairs. The two or three hundred ladies who visit the Union daily are the subjects of special attention from the officer on duty. Well-dressed young men, of the animated bouquet pattern, lounge through the halls, but the officer declares that no scientific "mashing" shall take place if he can prevent it. Hat and coat thieves stroll in the library at leisure. Soft hats that can be stowed away easily have a charm for them.

      Vandals who mutilate books, pamphlets, and newspapers have always been the curse of the City libraries, and they seem to increase with the number of patrons. No effective method of detection has been devised. The Mercantile Library Association has long offered a reward of $50 for each case of detection, but not a penny has been spent in this direction. Still the mutilations continue. A TIMES reporter was shown volumes of Knight's edition of Shakespeare in which dozens of pages and pictures were cut out bodily. The edition is valuable and to duplicate it will demand a large expenditure. Editions of Appletons' Cyclopedia were badly mutilated. A favorite subject for the vandals is Knight's Mechanical Dictionary, many of whose Illustrations have been torn or cut out. Librarians do not ascribe these mutilations to malice. Readers have only in view their own convenience. It is so much easier to cut out a favorite passage in a volume than to copy it, and if a person is making a collection of pictures, why, of course, one has no other resource than to cut out a pleasing illustration. Many valuable books are defaced in the City libraries by boys. Male persons in illustrated editions are transformed into women, and women are decorated with mustaches, silk hats, and other masculine appendages. The comments of readers are often found on the margins of the choicest volumes, and are usually characterized more by conceit than wisdom. The Mercantile Library officers complain that in some of their works on the drama entire plays are cut out by the vandals. A few years ago a Frenchman visited the Astor Library and, volume by volume, received the Revue des Deux Mondes, and mutilated the whole 40 volumes, valued at $300. He was arrested and convicted, but got off with a fine of only $10. His defense was that he was "not acquainted with the customs of the country," but his act was considered purely malicious. The Astor Library suffers most from those who clip out portions of bound newspaper files. The officer in charge of the room is not successful in detecting the offenders. The book mutilations continue, although the volumes are scanned before they are given out and when they are returned. To prevent larceny, a porter stands guard at the foot of the stairs and narrowly inspects every visitor as he leaves the building to see if he has any stray volumes concealed about his person. As this library is free to the whole City of New-York, it is, perhaps, remarkable that mutilations and larceny of books are not more frequent.