Clubs & Societies in British Guiana to 1844, 79 
first introductions was a subscription Reading Room, of 
which we find advertisements in March 1824. Later on 
in the same year a meeting to form a Steam Navigation 
Company was held in the Colony House, while the 
Governor himself founded a Philosophical Society which 
held its meetings at his residence. Several papers read 
before this Society were published in English magazines 
and from them it appears that it concerned itself princi- 
pally with physics. Subscription Book Societies were 
first introduced about this time, one of the printed labels 
of the " Demerara New Book Society," containing four- 
teen names, that of the Governor coming first. In De- 
cember 183 1, two thousand volumes belonging to this 
society were advertised for sale. 
Other institutions of this time were the Demerara 
Literary Society, Georgetown Book Society, Medical 
Book Society, the Benevolent Society of Mechanics (a 
Friendly Society) and a branch of the Society for Pro- 
moting Christian Knowledge. 
In 1832 the influence of Governor D'Urban seems 
to have almost suppressed open political discussion, the 
newspapers being prevented from criticising the action of 
the Government. To make up for this, which was set 
down as arbitrary and tyrannical by a few, a better state 
of things began to dawn. Among the novelties of this 
time were artesian wells, which, as is well-known, supply 
a brackish chalybeate water. Mr. F. P. BRANDT, in 
1832, took advantage of the qualities of the water to 
establish the Demerara Spa in Cumingsburg. Hot and 
cold baths, were provided, as well as a reading room with 
English and colonial papers and periodicals and conve- 
niences for drinking the water, only subscribers or persons 
