No. 46. — 1895.] JUBILEE COMMEMORATION. 



83 



positions like his can spare any time to visit us, we are the more 

 grateful for such occasions as this. 



" This Society has never depended upon the patronage of the 

 Governors, as you have seen in the fact that indeed it started without 

 any assistance from the highest quarters, but it has most thankfully 

 received that patronage and assistance, and has very seldom been with- 

 out it. During my experience of the Society we have had many 

 Governors of the Island, not only kind frjiends, but actual working 

 Members, especially in the case of Sir Arthur Gordon. 



" I confess that I have been anxious to impress not only upon His 

 Excellency, but upon all representatives of Government and the Civil 

 Service who may be here, how large a part has been taken in the past, 

 and may legitimately be taken in the future, by them in promoting the 

 work of this Society, and how well the Society has earned that by 

 what it has done in paving the way for the more fitting and powerful 

 work of Government itself on the part of the officers of the Society. 



" I most heartily excuse His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor 

 from continual attendance at our Meetings, but I do think that he 

 should use his influence to induce the Members of the Civil Service, of 

 whom I see one or two brilliant examples who have helped us in the 

 past before me, to repeat and continue that work in the reading of 

 Papers which they are so well qualified to perform." 



Mr. J. Ferguson then rose and said : — " Your Excellency, ladies, 

 and gentlemen, — I am loth to speak, but I feel that there has been 

 a very great omission in the very able and admirable address we have 

 listened to this evening. It is not an omission which the Members of 

 this Society need to have supplied to them, but in this very large gather- 

 ing of those who are outside the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic 

 Society there may be a great number who do not know how very 

 large has been the part borne in the work of the Society, in the 

 reviving of it, in the carrying on of it, and in the taking up of 

 onerous duties year by year by the Right Rev. the Bishop of Colombo 

 (loud applause). That is the omission to which I refer. Since Dr. 

 Copleston came to Ceylon, I may say that he has been to a very 

 large extent the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 

 (laughter and applause), and I think it would be a very great 

 omission in a review of the period touched on by the Bishop, should 

 there be no reference to that work. 



" It has been quite a pleasure to me to listen to the old names that 

 have been brought forward — the Rev. Dr. MacYicar, who touched 

 nothing in Ceylon with his pen that he did not adorn, and Sir William 

 Gregory, to whom we are very much indebted indeed, because, though 

 we might not have had a Museum if the Society had not suggested it, 

 the Society might have existed one hundred years without the 

 Museum if the Governor had not taken up the matter. Sir William 

 Gregory came to this Colony after having established a high reputation 

 as a critic in regard to the British Museum, the National Gallery, 

 and the Royal Academy, and he brought great influence with him, 

 and great taste in the subjects connected with our Society. He 

 started an interest in Archaeology, and I am suie we owe a very great 

 debt to him when we contrast what he did with what was done in the 

 time of Sir C. Macarthy, who, though he had an overflowing exchequer 



