TO OUR EEADEES. 



At the close of another Volume, and, in this instance, at the close of another year, the Editors 

 have again to give expression to their gratitude and their hopes. (Jn no one of the twenty-nine 

 occasions on which they have thus addressed you have they in any degree exaggerated the similar 

 feelings which influenced them ; and the successes and the onward prospects which on those 

 occasions justified their words are still more justifying now. 



They turn over the pages of the Volume just concluded, and to which this Address is to be 

 introductory, and they fear no contradiction to the dictate of their judgment that — it is more 

 than equal to any one of its predecessors in the useful information it contains. 



Then as to the future. The i^ortrait within this Volume reminds them — were a reminder 

 needed — that one of the most able of the contributors to this Journal will enrich its pages no 

 more ; yet, as statesmen have observed in far more momentous transactions, the Editors have 

 found that when a need for aid is acknowledged, efficient volunteers always step forth and render 

 that need but transient. 



Those who are insensible to the approbation bestowed upon them by competent judges are 

 devoid of one of the most efficient promptings to efforts for the attainment of excellence. The 

 Editors do not pretend, therefore, to any such insensibility, but acknowledge the high gratification 

 they felt on hearing recently from one who is now the oldest member of their staff, that a 

 gentleman of no small note concluded his observations on these pages by saying — " That .Journal 

 is independent, and I have never found a sentence in it unworthy of a gentleman." 



Those are characteristics the Editors have always coveted, and never more so than for 

 the two Volumes which will comprise the Journals of 186-i ; for the Editors foi'esee 

 that during its days events and topics appropriate to their pages are likely to occur wliich will 

 require even more than the usually-needed firmness and good temper. 



