26 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



they must, their procedure towards each other may be of the 

 same compHmentary description as that which is observed by the 

 smaller tigers who have their meetings in our back yards, and there 

 make known to one another the state of there minds. But such en- 

 counters are unpremeditated — there is no laborious preparation for 

 them. It is reserved for man to nourish murder in his heart, and 

 we have on our tables evidences of the complacency with which he 

 contemplates the destruction of his kind, and prepares himself with 

 means to accomplish it. Here are portentous clubs which we can 

 easily see would be terribly efficient in a savage onslaught. With 

 those there is no respects for parts any more than for persons, they 

 are intended to crush wheresoever they strike. Besides them there 

 are also lighter weapons, made of hard and heavy wood, but not too 

 hard, we have been told, for their proposed use. These are thought 

 suited for contact with the heads of adversaries. Other instruments 

 there are also, all showing a bent for mischief, but exhibiting in 

 all, savage as they are, an excellent power of adaptation of means to 

 end, and extraordinary taste and artistic power. Amongst our col- 

 lection of these things we have the boomerang, an evidence of in- 

 genuity which has astonished all men, manifested as it has been by a 

 people in the very lowest state of savage life, and by them only. I 

 think that in the contemplation of those articles, which we may very 

 properly call "reliques of a pre-historic age," we have some com- 

 fort for those who when they witness the destruction of ornamented 

 old buildings, are greatly distressed lest with them art should perish 

 also. There seems to be no cause to fear for art. Taste may be 

 in danger, because thoughts and habits may become corrupt, but 

 art will always be at hand to minister adornment to whatever may 

 be for the time the prevailing ideal. If true art springs from just 

 thoughts and pure manners, no doubt it will always appear, that it 

 may give to those expression. In the instances before us, we see it 

 afford its sanction to the most blood curdhng conceptions. 



Lastly, we come to our library. By donation and purchase vt^e 

 have procured a fair commencement, and it will be the duty of our 

 library committee by a judicious selection of new books, to make a 

 good use of whatever funds they may have the good fortune to obtain. 

 I am sorry that I cannot point to any source of needed funds just 

 at present. No intimations have reached us lately from our 



