The Institute reading room

Text 1: Twenty minutes with The Times, by Samuel Ackroyd

An original diary written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

The reading room of the Mechanics’ Institute opens at six, after the mills close, and by a quarter past every chair is taken. The Institute can afford only one copy of each London paper, and last winter a single reader might keep The Times for the whole evening while a row of men stood waiting behind him. The committee has therefore fixed a card to each paper’s wooden rod, stating that no member may hold it for longer than twenty minutes. The librarian keeps a small sand glass upon his desk and turns it whenever a paper changes hands. I grumbled at first, but tonight I read three papers where formerly I should have read none.

Explain why the committee introduced a time limit for reading the newspapers.