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other matter” as they “ may determine,” I was informed that the 
only way of bringing the subject before you was to submit to you 
a resolution, involving the omission of those words in the bye-law 
giving them the power of publishing your ‘Transactions ’ with any 
other matter they might wish. Without immediate reference, 
then, to the object I have in view, I would call your attention to 
the extraordinary power given to your Council by this bye-law. 
There is nothing here to prevent them from publishing your 
‘Transactions’ in a daily paper, and committing you to any religious 
or political opinions they might hold, on the ground that it was 
“ other matter,” which they had the power to determine. I do not 
say that any Council you would choose would thus act, but 
it is nevertheless an extraordinary power to give to a Council ; 
and it is on the ground of this bye-law that your Council have 
ventured to mix up your ‘Transactions’ with a journal called the 
‘ Monthly Journal of Microscopical Science.’ The danger of this 
clause in the bye-law is, I think, fully demonstrated by the fact 
that I have several times requested the Council to bring before 
the Society the subject of the separation of your ‘ Transactions ’ 
from the journal which I have had the honour to edit now for 
sixteen years. In answer to my request that the subject should 
be brought before you as a body, Mr. Slack, your Secretary, told 
me that no Council would submit to the dictation of a Society. 
(Mr. Slack — “I deny that statement altogether.”) I am glad to 
find that I misunderstood Mr. Slack, and that he evidently thinks 
the subject ought to have been brought before the Society. My 
only object in making this resolution to-night is to have an 
expression of your opinion. As one of the earliest members of 
your Society, as one of your former Presidents, and as a member 
of your Council for eighteen years — in fact, till your recent 
bye-laws excluded the former Presidents from being members of 
the Council — and w r ith my distinguished friend, Professor Busk, 
one of the editors of your ‘ Transactions ’ for sixteen years, I trust 
you will allow me to make to you some observations on the 
recent change you have made in the publication of your ‘ Trans- 
actions.’ When the question was mooted, more especially by 
your late President, Mr. Glaisher, as had been previously done 
by Mr. Farrants when he was President, of publishing the 
‘ Transactions ’ separate from the journal which I and Mr. Busk 
edited, I was anxious that an arrangement which had worked so 
well for the Society should continue. When we first offered to 
publish the * Transactions ’ of the Society with our new journal, 
now sixteen years ago, the Society then numbered only 150 
members, and from that time to the cessation of your connection 
with our journal every year presented an increase of members, 
till at the close of our arrangement the number of members 
amounted to 470. I am sorry to observe, from your President’s 
address to-night, that that success has ceased. He has had the 
painful task of announcing to you that for the first time in the 
Society’s history there has been no increase of members during 
