180 The Microscope. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Our Eighth Annual Meeting.— Most careful preparations 

 have been made for our Eighth Annual Meeting, commencing 

 on the 18th inst. Mr. Vorce has already done a vast amount of 

 work and we are sure we shall soon see some of the fruits of his 

 labors. The President and Secretary give us assurances of a 

 successful meeting, and it seems a foregone conclusion, therefore, 

 that our eighth meeting will outrank any of the others. 



It must be borne in mind that, as a society, we are no longer 

 an experiment. Starting with a score of earnest workers, we 

 have had a healthy, rapid growth, until now we can count our 

 members by the hundred. It follows, therefore, at our annual 

 meeting, that we must economise the time devoted to our daily 

 sessions, in order to present as much matter as possible. We 

 have no criticisms to make on our business sessions; they have 

 been characterized by great promptness and the best of good 

 feeling. But we must insist upon being relieved and upon re- 

 lieving our fellow-sufferers, from the lengthy uninteresting pa- 

 pers, read by parties who have become Monomaniacs on their 

 pet subjects. 



It is, of course, necessary to have some papers of consider- 

 able length ; to shorten them would be to ruin them. Again 

 some of these papers may be of such general interest, that, 

 notwithstanding their length, they should be read in full. But 

 what can be said of those papers that occupy an hour or more 

 in reading, upon subjects without interest to over half a dozen 

 members ? The Publishing Committee have this in their power, 

 have they not ? 



Then will they allow a hundred of us— who will be— at 

 Cleveland, to bestow our hearty thanks upon them by decreeing : 



First, No paper shall be read by title only ; Second, No 

 author shall occupy more than twenty minutes in reading his 

 paper ; Third, Papers more than twenty minutes in length must 

 be read in abstract. Short papers, short speeches, and short 

 sessions, will give the members more opportunity for social life 

 and for comparison of notes, and will insure a successful meet- 

 ing. 



