REPORT OF THE COUNCIL 
OF THE 
YORKSHIRE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, 
February 9TH, 1903. 
The Council in presenting its Report for 1902, is able to 
congratulate the Society on the progress made during that 
period. In the following summary, external affairs affecting 
the Society, the internal history and its financial position will 
be successively dealt with. 
In dealing with the subject of passing events in the city, 
your Council cannot ignore the project now under discussion 
by our City authorities for “beautifying” the ramparts—that 
is planting them and laying them out for walks, preparatory to 
throwing them open as public playgrounds. Against this de¬ 
secration of our antiquities your Council has already protested. 
For this they have been fiercely attacked, and some people 
have not hesitated to assert that members of this Society, from 
the vantage ground of their own beautiful gardens, are trying 
to close open spaces to their less favoured fellow-citizens. A 
Society which has given up paying property, and spent hun¬ 
dreds of pounds on the protection and development of the city's 
antiquities, can afford to smile at such accusations. Indeed it 
is difficult to believe that they were made seriously, though they 
unfortunately mislead the thoughtless and ill-informed. But 
however our action may be received, or our motives construed, 
it is our plain duty to resolutely protest against any attempt to 
mar the dignified simplicity of our ancient monuments, and to 
impair their historical value, by ill-advised adornment. Besides 
this, planting may be a positive source of danger, as the case of 
Clifford’s Tower shews only too plainly. There is no member 
of the Society that w r ou!d not gladly see open spaces devoted 
to the recreation of all our citizens, and made pleasant and 
attractive for this purpose. Our Strays might well be 
utilized in this manner, but such pleasure grounds could be, and 
