188 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE. 
up among us, owing to the energetic initial of a few enthusiastic 
Colonists, but, like a megass fire, which after a bright short | 
blazing up, soon collapses and dies out without even leaving any 
perceptible smouldering debris, they have all collapsed after a 
few years crawling on, leaving no vestiges after them. To-day, 
however, we earnestly cherish the hope, even after so many sad 
trials, that, under your sympathetic patronage, and your 
enlightened direction, the public will soon realize the benefits 
which may be expected from this Society, and that the Victoria 
Institute will, henceforth, cheerfully enter into a new era of 
popularity and usefulness, and will prove itself worthy of the 
patriotic ' and happy event to which it owes its birth, and to 
which have been added, the recent unique National Grand 
Jubilee of Her Majesty’s glorious and unparalled 60 years reign 
over the vast British Empire. 
The Chairman (Mr. Alcazar) said he had much pleasure in 
acceding to the request which had been conveyed to him in 
such graceful terms by the Vice-President. He considered it an 
honour to have the privilege of presiding on this interesting 
occasion, an occasion which he hoped would mark an epoch in 
the history of the Institute. He was much afraid that the 
general public and indeed even the members of the Institute had 
begun to look upon it as a sort of moribund institution, and they 
were daily expecting to have been called upon to assist at its 
funeral. It was with pleasurable surprise that instead of being 
called upon to assist at that gruesome ceremony, there had been 
issued a most interesting programme to be carried out during 
.the coming session — a programme which would not only be 
interesting to the members of the Institution but a large section 
of the general public, as even the working men of the community 
were to be catered for in the form of lectures on plumbing, 
painting, and other kindled subjects. When they first saw the 
programme, they all wondered whose was the magic wand that 
had electrified that anemic and lifeless body, and they now knew 
that it was due almost exclusively to the very kind interest 
which His Excellency the Governor had been pleased to take in 
the Institute and its work. His Excellency had shown by 
consenting to deliver the opening address, that that interest was 
to assume a practical form, and he was sure that the Members 
of the Institute and the publ.c were deeply grateful to His 
Excellency, for they felt, and the public would feel tint if His 
Excellency took that interest it was because he had relliled 
that that Institute was one which ought to exist fV„. +t, " j * 
the co—iy. .t W He hoped 
admission to those lectures would be more freely rliot -w j ai 
Secretary had informed him that that ' The 
was due principally to the 
