( xcv ) 



THE PEESIDENT'S ADDKESS. 



Gentlemen, 



It is a great pleasure to be able to congratulate the 

 Society on another year of prosperity. I need add no words 

 on this subject to the Report of the Council. 



The thoughts of prosperity and stability are inevitably 

 associated with the memory of one who worked long and hard 

 to secure these advantages for us, of one whose death in the 

 midst of his official work will always invest the past year with 

 peculiar pathos. All that has been gained by the devotion of 

 our late Treasurer will, we know full well, be preserved for us 

 by the care and skill of his successor, who most kindly con- 

 sented to come forward and help us, almost without notice. 

 I am sure that you will wish to express special gratitude to 

 Ml'. Albert H. Jones for his services to the Society under 

 circumstances of great difficulty and sorrow. 



The loss of so important an officer as the Senior Secretary is 

 a serious event in the history of any Society, and in the retire- 

 ment of Mr. Herbert Goss we are losing one who has served as an 

 officer for the record-breaking period of fifteen years. He first 

 entered the Council in January 1885, and was almost at once 

 induced to accept the Secretaryship, holding the position from 

 1885 to 1897. The Society, however, could not assent to his 

 permanent withdrawal, and in January 1901 he was attain 

 elected to the office which he held until his retirement on the 

 present occasion. We shall greatly miss his genial presence 

 from the official chair, as well as the advancement of the 

 interests of the Society which his position enabled him to 

 promote so successfully. Our warmest wishes go with him : we 

 know that the feelings which prompted him to do so much for 

 our community in office will still remain the same out of office, 

 and that the Society has no more loyal member or truer 



