it must be to the Society, because it proves, as the Council 

 fully anticipated, that the causes to which they attributed 

 the depression of 1852 were entirely of a temporary nature, 

 and that public interest would revive, as it has done, as 

 soon as the cause of that reaction had subsided. 



At no period of the Society's history, not even in the 

 remarkable year of the Great Exhibition, have the visitors 

 ever approached the number which were admitted on 

 Whit Monday, 1853. On that day 22,208 persons, exclu- 

 sive of children under two years of age, who are admitted 

 gratuitously, passed through the gates ; and the Council 

 have particular pleasure in recording the significant fact of 

 the extrem^e order and good conduct which pervaded the 

 whole assemblage without any exception having been re- 

 ported to them. Throughout the whole summer, whenever 

 the weather vi^as at all favourable, the same earnest desire 

 to take advantage of the facilities of access to the Collection 

 which the estabUshment now offers, was evinced by the 

 inhabitants of London and the strangers who visit it ; for 

 on 20 consecutive Mondays alone, from May 2nd inclusive, 

 an average of upwards of 7000 persons paid the reduced 

 price of sixpence for their admission ; and the total number 

 of visitors in the whole twelvemonth of 1853 was thus 

 brought up to 409,076, exclusive of about 10,600 charity 

 children, who had admission gratuitously. 



That the success of 1853 is by no means to be regarded 

 as the limit of public favour is sufficiently demonstrated by 

 the results already obtained in the present year. Up to 

 the week immediately preceding Easter, the increase in 

 the number of visitors had amounted to 21,587, ^nd the 

 increase in the receipts of the gate to the amount of £597 !*• 

 On Easter Monday, however, the weather being fortunately 

 favourable, a demonstration occurred, which must in all 

 respects be considered as equal to that very remarkable 

 display which took place on VVhit Monday, 1853. A con- 

 course of no less than 16,482 persons then assembled in 

 the gardens, with the same orderly demeanour as on pre- 

 vious occasions, and as very large numbers continued to 

 follow them on the succeeding days of the holiday week, 

 the increase in the number of visitors between the 1st of 

 January in the current year, as compared with the corre- 

 sponding period of 1853, has risen to 48,784, and the 

 increase in the receipts from that source has risen to 

 £1237 12.?. Gd. 



