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The deficit to be paid by the Council is less than last year’s by 
£51. The pictures sold during the Exhibitions were of a Catalogue 
value of £505 17s. od., or £86 in excess of last year, and the number 
of catalogues sold reached 5,412. The Art Union realised the sum of 
£75 8s. od., rather less than usual. The Exhibitions have been kept 
up to their usual standard of merit, and as a proof that the Gallery is 
growing in popular repute, the Hanging Committee at their last few 
exhibitions have always had more pictures submitted to them than they 
were able to hang, a very different state of affairs from that which 
obtained some few years since. The Spring Exhibition was a specially 
interesting one, and the thanks of the Committee are due to those 
gentlemen who kindly lent pictures. A good selection was made from 
the pictures of the Newlyn School, which had been on exhibition at 
Nottingham Castle, and a considerable number of pictures came on to 
us from the Birmingham Winter Exhibition, while the President and 
Council of the Royal Academy lent us the beautiful Chantrey Bequest 
picture, ‘‘ Hopeless Dawn,” by Mr. Frank Bramley, A.R.A. For the 
Summer Exhibition the Committee secured the Third Historical 
Travelling Collection of Water-Colours from South Kensington 
Museum, a collection specially interesting from a student’s point of 
view; and for the Upper Gallery, the collection of pictures by Mr. 
Byron Cooper, illustrative of Tennysonland. These two collections 
made a very attractive Exhibition. 
The Autumn Exhibition, now in progress, is fully up to the 
average in the number and merit of the pictures exhibited, and is 
especially strong in Water-Colours. During the month it has been 
open, it has been attended by 6,000 visitors. 
The contents of the four cases lent to the Art Gallery by the 
Department of Science and Art were changed at the usual time, and 
the objects now on loan include a case of electrotypes, one of Oriental 
China, and some very choice specimens of early English iron and wood- 
work, as well as some very good Indian objects. The Committee 
again have to acknowledge the ready courtesy of the Department, and 
the anxiety of the officials to send such specimens as the Committee 
desire, and more particularly those likely to be useful to the Art 
Industries of the district. 
The tenth Season of Promenade Concerts took place on the 
Saturday Evenings of last winter, and repeated the successes of former 
