IV 



whether the Council's course was " perfectly correct'" or not, it 

 was not the friendly and conrteous treatment that I expeeted 

 from them. The Council might, when my paper was first laid 

 bef ore them, have told me that they never permitted the authors 

 of papers to contribute towards the cost of the Asiatic Journal : 

 or they might then have declined the paper without giving any 

 reason, and I should have had nothing to complain of . As matters 

 stand, I f eel no inclination to have anything more to do with the 

 Society, and must repeat that I have withdrawn from it. 



Yours very truly, 



C. B. Claeke. 



To Capt. Waterhouse, 



Eon. Secy., A. 8. B. 



It is perhaps superfluous to state that the correspondence 

 stopped at this point. It will perhaps surprise persons unac- 

 quainted with the intemal management of the Asiatic Society, 

 Bengal, to learn (after reading the above correspondence) that 

 the Council Asiatic Society Bengal constantly receive payment 

 from contributors of papers to their Joumals. The Council may 

 say that such payments are supposed devoted to the cost of il- 

 lustrations, and that no part of them goes to the printing : but 

 I perhaps have no right to suggest that they would put forward 

 so disingenuous a distinction. 



To make the story qidte complete, I may add that the whole 

 question of the printing was arranged (before the paper was first 

 laid before the Council) with their Secretary. It was arranged 

 that it might appear as an Extra Number of the Journal (exactly 

 as similar papers appear in supplemental numbers of the Lin- 

 nsean Journal) without any disturbance of the Society's ar- 

 rangements with their printer whatever. 



The Asiatic Society Bengal actually published in August 

 1875 an Extra Number of the Journal without illustrations, 

 vlr.., Blyth's Catalogue of Birds and Mammals of Birma : the 

 very month in which my Monograph should have appeared : 

 and I am told that the cost of this Monograph was largely 

 provided by Mr. Blyth's friends. I was to pay the whole 

 cost of the " Indian Compositas" if so desired by the Society. My 

 object in troubling the Society with the paper at all was 

 solely to secure the services of the Society's Secretary in 

 putting it through the press. I am a travelling officer in re- 



