246 Notes and Comments. 



these days of paper shortage much paper might have been 

 saved, without detracting from its value ; and we must express 

 surprise that the editor considers a brown-paper cover sufficient 

 as a shrine, whatever the opinion of its readers may be. 



THE ' ASSOCIATION ' (?) 



An examination of the List of Delegates shows that there 

 were eighteen curators present, principally from small places 

 near Sheffield, and we must admit that some of them are 

 unknown to us, and rarely, if ever, had previously shown 

 sufficient interest in Museum work to attend the Annual 

 Conferences of the Museums' Association, even during the many 

 years that the editor of the present Report was the Hon. 

 Secretary of that Association. This might perhaps not be of 

 much moment but, on the first page of the Report it states 

 that ' A Conference of Members of the Museums Association ' 

 was held. The Lord Mayor very carefully stated : ' The 

 notification I have in my hand represents that this is a Conference 

 of the members of the Museums' Association,' and from his 

 remarks it is evident that the Chairman of the Sheffield Museum 

 Committee was under the same impression. We contend that 

 it was not in any way a meeting of the Museums' Association, 

 any more than it was a meeting of golfers or masonic brethren. 

 True, some of those present happened to be members of the 

 Museums' Association, just as some happened to be golfers, and 

 others masons. With the few exceptions — already explained — 

 the members of the Museums' Association, although aware of 

 the existence, but apparently not impressed with the importance 

 of the Conference — were conspicuous by their absence. With 

 about one possible exception, not a single person holding any 

 position in the Museums' Association, as constituted to-day, 

 was present. Nor were Curators there from any of the 

 National Museums and Art Galleries in England, Wales, Ireland 

 or Scotland, nor from the museums at Liverpool, Manchester, 

 Norwich, Glasgow, Leicester, York, Hull, Nottingham, New- 

 castle, Ipswich, Swansea, Chester, Exeter, Sunderland, Maid- 

 stone, Cardiff, Brighton, Stoke, Carlisle, Worcester, Hastings, 

 Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, Rochdale, a few places mentioned at 

 random, whose Curators are familiar figures at the Annual 

 Conferences of the Museums' Association. 



A SUGGESTION. 



If the Sheffield meeting really was a Conference of the 

 Museums' Association, it is rather surprising to find, on a neatly 

 printed programme issued in connexion with the recent Con- 

 ference of that Association at Manchester, the Editor of the 

 Sheffield Report — naively suggesting that the Association's 

 Conferences should be discontinued until after the war, and 

 that its organ. The Museums Journal, be issued quarterly 



Naturalist, 



