1895.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 93 



during the whole three years of his incumbency, but he has 

 never handed us one single line of manuscript. When he has 

 had printed or hectographed matter for general distribution he 

 has sometimes but not always furnished us with copy. He ha? 

 known perfectly well that we should be only too happy to 

 publish everything regarding the meetings of the Society. But 

 the Secretary is a man of some sense, of some idea of the fitness 

 of things. Having a rule in his Society forbidding people to 

 give us their papers for immediate publication, and, not content 

 with the Annual Proceedings of his predecessors, having suc- 

 ceeding in inaugurating at the Societ3'^'s expense (dont forget 

 that) a new periodical to compete (?) with us, and (please do 

 not laugh) to rival the Journal of the Royal Microscopical 

 Society, and having, when he wished to criticise a paper in our 

 columns, gone off to the wilds of Michigan to find a w^eekly 

 paper in which to utter bis denunciations, — having done these 

 silly things, he has had the good sense to know that he ought 

 not to ask favors of us, or to permit us to help make his Society 

 (for it seems to be his) and his new Periodical a success. 



But aside from a commendable sensitiveness such as we 

 have described, there has been another insuperable barrier to 

 his furnishing us data regarding approaching meetings of the 

 Society, i. e. he had practically none to communicate. When 

 he started for Brooklyn he did not know what was to occur 

 th^re. Much less could he have told us in time to put it in 

 the July issue. The same was true in 1893 of the meeting at 

 Madison, Wis. but The World's Fair was made to carry the 

 blame of the abject failure of that meeting. But of the 1892 

 meeting held here in Washington, also nearly a failure, no 

 possible excuse could be offered. Although Mr. Smiley was in 

 Europe, the columns of the Journal were open to announce- 

 men's regarding the approaching meeting at which the Secreta- 

 ry had prophesied there would be 100 members present, but 

 nothing was furnished. Consequence, not 35 members were 

 here iTom out of town. 



Of course, the Secretary sends an announcement of his own 

 to the members, but here again is a difficulty. His list is an- 

 tiquated and out of date to some extent. Many people pay no 

 attention to free circulars who would read announcements in 

 their periodicals which they have to pay for. Circulars get 



