Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/17

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Annual Report of the Council.
5


THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT OF
THE COUNCIL.

28th January, 1903.


In laying before the Society their twenty-fifth Annual Report, the Council are unable to chronicle any increase in membership. The number of members now on the roll is 391, as compared with 393 a year ago. As foreshadowed in the last Report, the calls upon the public purse have still further increased during the past year, and it is therefore perhaps a matter for congratulation that the shrinkage in the roll of members has been so insignificant. The Council cannot help feeling, however, that there must still be a large number of people interested in Folklore who have not yet so much as heard of the existence of the Society; and they would therefore very earnestly appeal to all members to make the aims and objects of the Society as widely known as possible, and to do their best to enlist recruits.

The only deaths which have been recorded are those of Colonel John Davis and Dr. J. H. Gladstone, F.R.S., both old and valued members of the Society. But the number of resignations has been rather larger than usual.

The following meetings were held in the course of the year 1902, at which papers were read before the Society, viz.:—

Jan. 22. The President's Address.
Feb. 26. "Notes on Harvest Customs." Mrs. Gomme, Mr. E. A. Binney, and Mrs. Jewitt.
"The Letter of Toledo." Dr. Gaster.
March 26. "Some Stray Notes on Oxfordshire Folklore. Mr. P. Manning.
"Folklore Notes from St. Briavel's." Miss L. M. Eyre.
"Malay Spiritualism." Mr. W. W. Skeat.
April 23. "The Lifting of the Bride." Mr. W. Crooke.