490 EEPORT— 1903. 



Railway Fares for Members of Scientific Societies. 



The Secretary read the following letter from Mr. Herbert Stone, 

 F.L.S., r.R.C.I., President of the Birmingham Natural ■ History and 

 Philosophical Society, and Delegate to the meeting : — 



With the assistance of my colleague, Mr. Richard Hancock, I have 

 recently been engaged in getting up a petition to the great railway 

 companies, on behalf of the scientific and photographic Societies of the 

 Midlands, asking for the same privileges as are enjoyed by anglers, 

 namely, the ' picnic ' rate, or fare and a quarter, to certain specified 

 places upon presentation of the Association ticket at the booking-office. 

 The joint committee formed for the purpose of gaining this end, and of 

 which^ Mr. Hancock and I are joint Secretaries, represents twenty-two 

 Societies, with a membership of 1,700. Our petition has met with a 

 refusal, after being before the periodical meetings of the managers of the 

 various railway companies. At these meetings all questions affecting 

 railways in general are discussed, and amongst more important matters 

 a petition such as ours would naturally get scant attention, and I doubt 

 if the meeting was put in possession of the arguments for our side as set 

 forth in our letter. 



My object is to ask if the British Association can aid us. An applica- 

 tion from the Association would at least be considered, whereas the 

 curtness of the replies to our petition shows that the companies consider 

 that we are a negligible quantity. 



Of course it would be unreasonable to suppose that the Association 

 would act for a limited body of Societies, but I imagine from the support 

 given to the project from those already organised that it would not be 

 difficult to obtain the assistance of the whole of the Societies of the same 

 nature in Great Britain. In this work I should be pleased to take my 

 shai'e. 



Cojvj nf Letter referred to. 



Bracebridge Street, Birmingham : 

 The Superintendent of the Line, Juiw 2i, 1903. 

 Railway. 



'^i'") — On behalf of the Societies enumerated below, for whom we are 

 authorised to speak, we take the liberty of asking if you can see your way 

 to grant to the members of those Societies the ' picnic ' arrangement as at 

 present enjoyed by the Birmingham and District United Angling Associa- 

 tion. We wish to point out that naturalists and amateur photograpliers 

 work singly, and not in bodies, and that the ordinary method of arranging 

 for parties of ten rather discourages excursions amongst this class than 

 otherwise. The privilege of booking at a fare and a quarter to the 

 stations at present set out on the anglers' cards would, we are confident, 

 result in a large increase of traffic both in point of number of excursions 

 and of distance travelled. In 1884, when the anglers' societies were 

 federated, their membership was about 300. At the present time it is 

 many thousands. It is fair to assume that angling per se would never 

 have produced such numbers without the stimulus of the reduced rate, 

 and we believe that a similar increase would take place in the traffic if 

 the same concession be made to our own body, as the localities near at 



