342 ANNUAL MEETING. 



such a satisfactory repoi't before. — The resokition was carried 

 with acclamation. 



Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence in vacating the chaii' in 

 favour of the new president said : I am exceedingly glad that I 

 am able to be with you on the present occasion when it is my 

 duty to hand over to my successor the office in which you placed 

 me two years ago. .1 have enjoyed very much my tenure of the 

 position of president of the Royal Institution of Cornwall and 

 I feel much satisfaction that during my presidency the Institution 

 has entered upon what seems likely to prove a greatly extended 

 sphere of usefulness. My onl}' regret is that I have been 

 prevented from presiding here so often as I cou.ld have wished, 

 but I can assure you that, even though I was unable to be with 

 you, I have always had at heart the best interests of this great 

 Institution. Ladies and gentlemen, may I be permitted to say 

 how glad I feel that the office is now to jiass to a gentleman so 

 well known and so highly esteemed as our friend, Mr. Howard 

 Fox, and in leaving the chair will you allow me to repeat my 

 warm thanks to you for the honor you did me by placing me in 

 the distinguished position which I am so proud to have filled, 

 and to express my inost earnest wishes for the continued success 

 of this Institution, the welfare of which I can assure you I shall 

 ever continue to do my best to promote. 



On taking the chair, Mr. Fox said : — 



Ladies and Gentlemen : You must kindly allow me a few 

 words of personal explanation. I came here on the 15th of last 

 month expressly to vote for Major Parkyn as your president. 

 The Council had repeatedly j)ressed him to accept the office but 

 they found that he really and honestly preferred to continue to 

 carry out the duties of your local honorary secretary, without the 

 addition of those falling on the president. They then elected 

 me. I was taken so much by surprise that I did not even thank 

 them for the honour. For this breach of courtesy I tender them 

 my apologies ; but if they deal in shocks they must be prepared 

 for surprises. I naturally felt that some well-known Cornish- 

 man of greater ability and more leisure than myself should have 

 been elected, and I was not, and am not, without an uncomfort- 

 able sense of the appropriateness in my case of Pope's celebrated 



