PUBLISHING COMMITTEES. | 305 
unfrequently happens that partiality or prejudice 
enters largely into these decisions; for the publishing 
committee being irresponsible, their decision is 
final, and papers of the highest interest have been 
known to share the fate of “ Rejected Addresses,” 
when the views or theories they were intended to 
promulgate were in opposition to those entertained 
by the presiding judges.* By feelings of an opposite 
tendency, performances of little interest and less 
ability contrive to “ pass muster,” solely from the 
interest of friends “at the board.” Hence it is 
generally found, that those members, who have the 
means of bringing their investigations before the 
scientific world through any other channel, are but 
scanty contributors to the transactions of societies ; 
or, if they occasionally venture to send in a paper, 
take care that it should be confined to a matter-of- 
fact subject,—the plumage ofa new bird, or the cha- 
racter of a new shell, — upon which there cannot, in 
ordinary cases, be a difference of opinion. Interest, 
in fact, is frequently as necessary for one descrip- 
tion of these papers as for the other; for, otherwise, 
it is impossible to account for the insertion of one 
hundred and nine contributions in the Philosophi- 
cal Transactions by a late eminent surgeon, many 
of which are not only erroneous in theory, but in- 
correct as to facts. 
(212.) Oral discussion is limited to very few of 
- our societies, although it is perhaps the most agree- 

* A curious instance of this, furnished by the Zoological 
Society (the least scientific in its objects of all those in Lon- 
don), is mentioned in the Entomological Magazine, vol. ii. for 
January, 1834. 
x 
