The Daily Dispatch: March 16, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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A Public Library.

--We have always regretted the very slight encouragement given by the public to all the attempts heretofore made to establish a public library. Were we to measure the literary taste of our citizens by the amount of support they have afforded such enterprises in the past, we should say they possessed precious little of the commodity in question. To all thinking men, it must be truly refreshing to turn aside from the furious bustle of business into the quiet retreat of a library of well-selected tomes. Such a class as we have alluded to regard an oasis of this kind an indispensable requisite to perfect enjoyment. When one can, for a few dollars per annum, surround himself with all the highest products of the older civilizations-- when his surroundings console him for the loss of Paris, Rome, London, New York, and other large communities — when he is encompassed round about not only by the solid books which the best minds of those cities have produced but all those ephemeral, fanciful and jocose thoughts which passing events call forth from them, we think neglect of such an institution betokens want of literary taste, niggardly parsimony, or the absence of that refinement of which we are want to boast.--We believe the books of the Richmond Library are to be placed in the new building recently erected by the city on Bank street, corner of 10th--a good location, if they are not placed too high up.