> > On a debian system I am looking at has a /usr/local/lib/emacs which I > > consider to be stranded. > Please check that the _current_ Emacs package still does this.
Current emacs does *create* the directory (ie. it is in the package contents), as recommended by the debian packaging guidelines, as a hint to the user that emacs will *look* there if there's anything in it. It does not put any files there, of course.
