ELECTION OF SECRETARY 



candidates were formally proposed and seconded : 

 Mr. Bartley and Mr. Woodford, the former being 

 described as a nurseryman, of Lawrence Hill, 

 Bristol, and the latter as an attorney, of Bath. 

 The minutes of the meeting state that " the 

 members present, 39 in number, exclusive of 

 the Chairman, proceeded to ballott, the door 

 being first bolted ; on which last account, as it 

 afterwards appeared, a considerable number of 

 the declared friends of Mr. Bartley were acci- 

 dentally excluded from voting." The result of 

 the voting was the election of Mr. Bartley by 29 

 votes to 10, so that, happily, the barring-out 

 process did not affect the result, though, if the 

 voting had been the other way, the proceeding 

 might have been viewed with some suspicion. 

 It is difficult to comprehend why it should have 

 been considered necessary to lock everybody in 

 before they voted and to take such care to keep 

 out late arrivals. This appears an excess of 

 caution, unless there was an anticipation of an 

 undisciplined horde of non-members " rushing " 

 the meeting room. Notwithstanding the pre- 

 ponderating support he received, Nehemiah, un- 

 fortunately, was not a success ; his besetting 

 sin an unpardonable one in a Secretary, by 

 the way being incurable laziness. Though the 

 Society bore this with Christian patience for 

 some time, the limit of human endurance was 

 reached in 1805, when lazy-bones was given his 

 conge; possibly the "confinement" sapped his 

 vital energy, or more probably, being a nursery- 

 man, he regarded the condition as applying more 

 to his own garden than to the Society's offices. 



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