[30] Prefatory Memoir.
[31] “At the first meeting in April, and also in October, a Committee shall be elected, which shall consist of at least one-fifth of the members of the Society. The mode of election shall be as follows:—A ticket shall be delivered to each member present, with his own name at the head of it, immediately under which he shall write the name of the member whom he may wish to represent him in the Committee. The votes thus given, shall be delivered to the president, who, after having assorted them, shall report to the meeting the number of votes given for each nominee. Every one who has five votes shall be declared a member of the Committee; if there are more than five votes given to any one person, the surplus votes (to be selected by lot) shall be returned to the electors whose name they bear, for the purpose of their making other nominations, and this process shall be repeated till no surplus votes remain, when all the inefficient votes shall be returned to the respective electors, and the same routine shall be gone through a second time, and also a third time if necessary; when if a number is elected, equal in all to one-half of the number of which the Committee should consist, they shall be a Committee; and if at the close of the meeting the number is not filled up, by unanimous votes of five for each member of the Committee, given by those persons whose votes were returned to them at the end of the third election, then this Committee shall have the power, and shall be required, to choose persons to fill up their number; and the constituents of each member so elected shall, if necessary, be determined by lot. The President, Secretary, and Treasurer, all for the time being, shall be members of the Committee, ex-officio, whether elected or not. In the intervals between the general elections, it shall be competent to any four members of the society, by a joint nomination, in a book to be opened for the purpose, to appoint a representative in the ensuing Committee; such appointment being made shall not be withdrawn, nor shall the appointers give any vote in the choice of a Committee-man, as such, until after the next election. A register shall be kept by the Secretary of the constituents of every member of the Committee; and the constituents of any member, except those appointed by the Committee, (upon whose dismissal that body may exercise a negative,) shall have the power of withdrawing their representative, by a vote of their majority, of which vote notice in writing shall be given (subscribed by the persons composing such majority) both to the member so dismissed, and to the Chairman of the Committee; and in the case of a vacancy occasioned by a dismissal as above, or by any other cause, the constituents of the member whose place becomes vacant, may elect another in his stead, by a unanimous vote, but not otherwise; if such election be not made within a fortnight after the vacancy has occurred, the appointment shall devolve upon the Committee.”
[32] I give this Preface in Appendix B.
[33] A young man to whom he was strongly attached. He also had been bent on doing something for the world—something which should make his name live. He was studying engineering, and it was his great hope that he should live to make a canal through the Isthmus of Panama. Unhappily he died at an early age.
[34] Published in London by Sir Richard Phillips.
[35] Prefatory Memoir.
[36] Prefatory Memoir.
[37] “Of course I do not mean by these quotations to set up for my father or myself any claim to invention, seeing that we merely formed crude ideas which were never elaborated or even published.”—Prefatory Memoir.
[38] Prefatory Memoir.
[39] Sir Rowland Hill, to a considerable extent at all events, recovered the process. It is described in Appendix C. He adds: “As it is fully fifty years since I gave any thought to the subject, and as, in the eightieth year of my age, I find my brain unequal to further investigation, I must be contented with the result at which I have arrived.”