6 TWENTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT

relaxed enough in recent years to exchange duplicate books or maps,
but manuscripts, never! Nor is this intended as an indictment of the
acquisition policies of the Library of Congress or of the Maryland
Historical Society where the largest collections of Maryland public
records outside the State's custody are now located. These records came
through gift, bequest and purchase, all in good faith.

But how did these records get into the hands of dealers, testators
and donors? In various ways—sometimes they were stolen or, perhaps
better, carried away from unguarded depositories and often under the
eyes of indifferent custodians. Sometimes, as in the case of Maryland,
it is fair to suppose that some of the thefts or carryings-away were
actually the work of custodians themselves. An example, there is in
the Maryland Historical Society a letter addressed to a former Maryland
State official refusing to purchase an archival item at the asking price
but making a counter offer which was probably accepted, for this item
is nowhere to be found today. It is also fair to suppose that many
Maryland items came to the Library of Congress in the collection of
Peter Force, a great scholar and borrower who sometimes forgot to
return his borrowings. Many items now scattered, definitely came from
the old State Library at Annapolis, torn down to make way for the
new legislative chambers of the State House in 1905-1906. Some court
records were carried off by members of the bar preparing cases—judges,
too—to be given then to historical societies by their widows, and so
forth and so on with infinite variety.

Insofar as these practices served to preserve records which might
otherwise have been lost, they were beneficial. But this method of
preservation has long since outlived its usefulness. All of the older
states have now, and have had for some time, adequate archival in-
stitutions for this purpose. Moreover, these institutions are able to
reassemble fugitive records into usable series. How uneconomical and
what an anachronism to have one volume of a series at the Library of
Congress and eighteen at the Hall of Records!

Within the last thirty years some of these records have been
coming home. A few years ago a Charles County court record came from
Minnesota. Yesterday a criminal judgment record of Cecil County for
the year 1733 and a land record of the same county carried off by
Tarleton and Howe were sent us by a man in Florida. A benefactor last
year purchased a group of Executive Papers at public auction in New