NATURAL SCIENCE: 



A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress. 



No. 63. Vol. X. MAY. 1897. 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



The Case of the Chemical Society. 



A CONTESTED election for the presidency of one of the great 

 learned societies of London, is an event too rare to be passed 

 by in silence, even by those who, like ourselves, have no connection 

 with the Society in question, and who do not discuss the subjects of 

 its study. In the present instance, moreover, the contest has formed 

 the subject of lively conversation among all classes of scientific men, 

 and has even been alluded to in the daily press. 



Now we are not chemists, and we do not propose to appraise 

 either the scientific or the personal merits of the two eminent 

 candidates for the presidential chair of the Chemical Society. But 

 there are certain features of the contest that call for comment upon 

 grounds common to all scientific societies — indeed, to all societies 

 whatsoever. 



The essential facts are these : The Council of the Society, as is 

 the custom, nominated a President and Officers. The Council's 

 nominee for President was objected to by some Fellows of the 

 Society, and they nominated for that post another gentleman, who 

 happened to be one of the Council's own nominees for the ofiice 

 of Vice-President. Further, to give their nomination equal 

 publicity to that by the Council, they sent to each Fellow of the 

 Society a circular letter announcing their action and requesting 

 support for their candidate. In this letter no reasons were given, 

 nor was the slightest attack made on the Council's nominee. As 

 counterblast to this, certain other Fellows issued another circular, 

 not merely defending the nomination by the Council, but objecting 

 quite unwarrantably, as it seems to us, to the action of the Councirs 

 opponents and introducing a regrettable personal element. This 

 mode of defence was carried beyond all limits of good taste in a 

 letter that a well-known chemist thought fit to send to the Chemical 

 News, a letter for which we hope apologies have since been tendered 

 to the gentlemen named in it. These whips, counterwhips, and 



