Report of the Meetings for 1892. 86 



The Secretary read a letter from Mr Middlemas, Alnwick, the 

 Treasurer, who stated that the balance in hand at the close of 

 last year, when the accounts were last made up, was £3 

 19s. 3id. 



Aid. Captain Norman regretted that the statement of accounts 

 had not been produced in the usual form. He should like to 

 know very much whether the Club had paid their debt to 

 Berwick Museum for the library which they kept there. 



The Secretary said he had a letter from Mr Middlemas, who 

 stated that he had paid the £2 rent, but he grudged to pay it 

 for the room which held the books ; as well as the £2 more for 

 a person to look after them ; £4 in all being the annual sum 

 exacted for this small accommodation. 



HOSPITALITY OFrERED TO THE CLUB. 



The President thought this was a good opportunity to give 

 expression to an opinion he had heard from several members, 

 and this was that the Club had, if anything, rather overdone 

 the acceptance of private hospitality of gentlemen up and down 

 the south of Scotland and north of England. While the 

 members owed the greatest gratitude to those gentlemen who 

 had been so kind, he might express the opinion that however 

 delightful and charming the meetings might have been, the 

 actual work of the Club, , to some extent, suffered from the 

 great number of those social gatherings. If the members, by 

 some self-denying ordinance, limited the number of occasions 

 on which they should accept private hospitality, they might be 

 able to devote more time to field work, and to the examination 

 of ruins, which were properly the objects of the Club. He did 

 not know whether it would be proper in him, as retiring 

 President, to propose an actual resolution to that effect, but he 

 could not keep feeling it was his duty to say that representations 

 of this kind had reached him from a considerable number of 

 members, and in giving expression to these representations he 

 must say, to a considerable extent, he sympathised with them. 



Sir William Crossman said that, as in the olden time, the 

 acceptance of hospitality from private gentlemen should be 

 the rule and not the exception. 



