476 



that the only reason conformable to public policy for the obligatory 

 apprenticeship to these incorporated Trades was the necessity of a 

 due learning of the art and mystery professed, and that when a 

 inere retailing shop-keeper demanded the same right of binding 

 apprentices as was possessed by a surgeon or a watchmaker the 

 abuse became apparent, and he suggested that the foundation of 

 this Company, whose Deed was now before the Club, was the indirect 

 and unintentional cause of the liberation of commerce in Bath. Dr. 

 Hunter proceeded with some observations on the special exceptional 

 characteristics which justified the continuance of some of the old 

 Companies in the present day. The Trinity House, the College of 

 Surgeons, the Apothecaries' Company, the Goldsmiths' Company, 

 and the Cutlers' Company of Hallamshire still flourished, not 

 because they afforded any protection respectively to their members, 

 but because they performed services of public utility. The paper 

 concluded with a recommendation of the Historical view as the 

 best means of reading political truth in general, but especially with 

 regard to new legislation on the qiiestion of Trades Unions on 

 which men will work blindfold if they do not study the experiments 

 afforded by the rise and fall of the old civic Companies. 



Mr. W. S. Mitchell then laid before the meeting a number of 

 photographs bearing upon the features of the physical geology 

 of the district recently taken under his direction, and said 

 that a comparison of the ai'chteological, botanical, and palsB- 

 ontological work done by the Club would show that the 

 strictly geological work was very much in the background, and 

 since the time of Lonsdale had been too much neglected. It 

 would, therefore, be well to endeavour to get the different 

 geological features of the district represented by photographs aa 

 well as by taking notes of them ; but then they would want to 

 know the relative heights of these different places, and it had been 

 felt by many that a map of the district, say within a six-mil€> 

 radius from the Guildhall, on a scale of four inches to the mile, 

 would be desirable, on which might be laid down the heights taken 

 from the Ordnance Survey, and from other sources which could be 

 depended upon, With tlicse data lines, and with the assistance of 

 9, }iew portable theodolite used by the coi-ps of Royal Engineers, 



