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Chamber, and it seemed to him that the Corporation was only 
discharging its proper function in endeavouring to encourage 
the study of science and literature. Town government depended 
in no small degree for its success on the scientific work associated 
with it, and he instanced especially as a result of progress in 
science the fall in the death-rate for the population of Burnley 
during late years. Municipal Government, he said, was the 
carrying into effect of the discoveries of scientific men, and in 
proportion as municipalities were scientifically governed they 
were well governed. 
The President, replying to the Mayor’s words of welcome, 
said; ‘* The Burnley Literary and Scientific Club will shortly 
complete the sixteenth year of its existence. Ido not think that 
any previous term has opened under more favourable auspices 
than the thirty-second session which we enter upon this evening. 
We have now a meeting-room which we can call our own, and 
where we can gather together the books belonging to the Club, 
and place them more readily at the disposal of the members. 
You, Sir, as Chief Magistrate of this important county borough, 
by opening your hospitable doors to us, and welcoming us so 
heartily, have given as it were high official sanction to our pro- 
ceedings. Our aims and those of the Council over which you 
preside with so much ability are closely allied. The great 
object for which the Council is constituted is to promote the 
health and general welfare of the inhabitants. We band our- 
selves together for the encouragement of scientific study— 
devoting our especial attention to social science. Notice is called 
to matters of vital import to the community, and we are not 
afraid to introduce what are called the burning questions of the 
day. Men opposed in politics or religion meet together for a 
friendly interchange of views on the great problems of the time. 
We believe that the full and frank discussion of such subjects 
is one of the best means of cultivating a wholesome feeling on 
matters so bound up with our national life. But, moreover, 
knowing the dangers incident to a life in a busy manufacturing 
town like our own—the engrossment of business pursuits—to 
correct such tendencies, to complete the ideal character and give 
the world assurance of a man we foster the study of literature. 
We may claim to have steadily cultivated the productions of 
the great master minds of all countries in the centuries that 
have passed. Those of our members who have leisure for travel 
give their home-keeping brothers the benefit of their studies 
and discoveries in lands replete with historic interest or abound- 
ing in the wonders of nature. Thus have we endeavoured to 
fulfil our mission, we have kept a lofty ideal before us, and have 
striven, however imperfectly, to attain it.” 
