COUNCIL FOR 1854. 19 



introducing their friends personally is one of which they cannot 

 avail themselves. They wish therefore that their wives should 

 have the same privilege with themselves. The Council has no 

 power to grant this privilege, as it involves an alteration in the 

 Society's rules. A month's notice of a motion to make this 

 alteration has been given, and it now remains for the members 

 present to consider its expediency, and to adopt or reject it. 

 Although the Council are not adverse to this alteration, they 

 think that they ought to inform the members that there is 

 probably no Society in England, dependent in part upon money 

 payments from strangers for admission, which grants such ex- 

 tensive privileges in this respect as the Yorkshire Philosophical 

 Society. 



Admission Fees. — Another alteration which has been sug- 

 gested, but which cannot be adopted at the present meeting, as 

 no notice has been given, has reference to the fee of £3, in 

 addition to the annual subscription, which has been always 

 paid by members on election. The Council are of opinion that 

 this fee cannot be abolished or diminished without detriment 

 to the finances of the Society, and injustice to those who have 

 already paid it. But it is thought that it might be advan- 

 tageously spread over three years, if the elected member pre- 

 ferred it, so that instead of paying £5 the first year and £2 a 

 year afterwards, he would pay £3 annually for three years, and 

 afterwards £2 annually. 



Appointment of a paid Assistant Secretary, — The resignation 

 of the late Secretary, T. H. Travis, Esq., to whose laborious 

 attention to its interests the Society is much indebted, left the 

 Council in a position of great difficulty. No gentleman possess- 

 ing at once sufficient leisure and proper qualifications for the 

 office of Secretary has been found willing to undertake it. The 

 duties of that office have, since Mr. Travis's resignation, been 

 performed by two gentlemen who avowed their conviction that 

 their engagements were such that they could not possibly 

 bestow upon the Society that time and attention which its 

 afiairs demanded, and therefore only consented to act as pro- 

 visional Secretaries. 



In consequence of this state of affairs, a strong feeling has 



