58
H. A. RYDINGS
A note in the Hongkong Recorder of 2nd July, and repeated in that already mentioned of 9th July, advised "Captains of Vessels and Strangers visiting the Colony" that they might be "admitted gratis to the privileges of the Reading Rooms, on being introduced by a Member." There is evidence that these privileges were in fact used by appreciative visitors, though in one instance with near-fatal results. In 1853 a party of officers from an American naval vessel visited the Victoria Library "to enjoy an hour's quiet reading." It is not stated by whom they had been introduced. The report continues:
"We were soon stretched out on easy chairs and couches conning our books. Having finished my examination of one pamphlet, I got up from my sofa on the verandah looking toward the harbor, to return it to a table spread with others some ten feet distant, and was returning to my seat with another when I saw the marble paved verandah falling in and my poor messmate, Winder, precipitated to the basement below, a distance of fourteen feet. He was completely covered and surrounded by the broken beams and masonry. My own feet were arrested on the very door sill from which the verandah separated, and I saw the sofa on which, but a moment before, I had been sitting, slide down into the abyss but, fortunately, it struck against a side wall and thus providentially covered and protected the head of my messmate from being broken. Had I been sitting on it that end must have fallen on his head and destroyed his life, if not my own; as it happened, his arm was broken by the marble squares of the pavement, and he did not escape without other bruises and scratches. LL. Jones, feeling his chair slipping, succeeded in springing from it into the room, and escaped. Imagine the breathless feeling with which I saw the floor give way to my very feet, and poor Winder falling."
—
It appears that the cause of the accident was that the beams of the verandah had been eaten away by termites. Whether these creatures had also attacked the books is not stated, but no doubt at some period of its existence the books in the Victoria Library must have suffered from the ravages of insects, and probably also from mould, the twin pests of tropical libraries. Certainly some of the volumes in the Morrison Library, to which reference will be made
58
H. A. RYDINGS
A note in the Hongkong Recorder of 2nd July, and repeated in that already mentioned of 9th July, advised "Captains of Vessels and Strangers visiting the Colony" that they might be "admitted gratis to the privileges of the Reading Rooms, on being introduced by a Member." There is evidence that these privileges were in fact used by appreciative visitors, though in one instance with near-fatal results. In 1853 a party of officers from an American naval vessel visited the Victoria Library "to enjoy an hour's quiet reading." It is not stated by whom they had been introduced. The report con- tinues:
"We were soon stretched out on easy chairs and couches conning our books. Having finished my examination of one pamphlet, I got up from my sofa on the verandah looking toward the harbor, to return it to a table spread with others some ten feet distant, and was returning to my seat with another when I saw the marble paved verandah falling in and my poor messmate, Winder, precipitated to the base- ment below, a distance of fourteen feet. He was completely covered and surounded by the broken beams and masonry. My own feet were arrested on the very door sill from which the verandah separated, and I saw the sofa on which, but a moment before, I had been sitting, slide down into the abyss but, fortunately, it struck against a side wall and thus providentially covered and protected the head of my messmate from being broken. Had I been sitting on it that end must have fallen on his head and destroyed his life, if not my own; as it happened, his arm was broken by the marble squares of the pavement, and he did not escape without other bruises and scratches. LL. Jones, feeling his chair slipping, succeeded in springing from it into the room, and escaped. Imagine the breathless feeling with which I saw the floor give way to my very feet, and poor Winder falling."
—
It appears that the cause of the accident was that the beams of the verandah had been eaten away by termites. Whether these crea- tures had also attacked the books is not stated, but no doubt at some period of its existence the books in the Victoria Library must have suffered from the ravages of insects, and probably also from mould, the twin pests of tropical libraries. Certainly some of the volumes in the Morrison Library, to which reference will be made
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