REPORT OF THE COUNCIL 
OF THE 
YOEKSHIKE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, 
February 3rd, 1885. 
Luring a year of continued agricultural and commercial 
depression the Council are able to present their Report to the 
Members for the year 1884 under circumstances which they 
cannot but consider highly favourable. 
At the last Annual Meeting of the Society a scheme was 
approved for the purpose of consolidating the debt of the 
Society and to pay off the principal and interest by yearly 
instalments within a limited time. This arrangement has been 
effected. 
The total debt of the Society is £3,500, £1,900 of which 
was, until the recent arrangement due to the Insurance Company, 
on Mortgage at 4 per cent, interest. A further sum of £1,600 
was due to the Treasurer, for which the Bank charged interest 
at the rate of 5 per cent. The total payment for interest for 
the year 1883 was £160 4s. lOd. The future yearly payment 
to be made, both in respect of principal and interest, will 
amount in the whole to £201 8s. Od., being £41 3s. 2d. only 
in excess of what was paid in the previous year for interest 
alone, but in the larger payment principal and interest are 
being gradually paid off and after a lapse of 30 years the debt 
will be entirely extinguished. 
The income of the Society is for the past year about the 
average, and the balance sheet will shew that a sum of 
£54 16s. 2d., being an excess of expenditure over income, is 
due to the Treasurer, but when it is considered that the cost of 
laying out the additional new ground contiguous to St. Mary’s 
Lodge has amounted to upwards of £80, and the cost of repairs 
of the Lodge, now occupied by Mr. Mann, at a rent of £50, 
