The British Association

Abstract

EDINBURGH.

THE Edinburgh meeting has not been remarkable for a large turn-out of members. Probably the greatest number of members are present on the Friday, when practically all have come and none have left. At this high-water mark the number of members, associates, and holders of transferable ladies tickets, was 2009, and although the tickets sold were increased to 2068 by Wednesday, the total attendance probably never quite reached 2000, which, although greater than last year's meeting at Cardiff, is much less than that twenty-one years ago at Edinburgh. Year by year the number of ladies taking part in the proceedings mounts steadily, and on several occasions the “popular” sections of anthropology and geography, which were frequently crowded, showed a great preponderance. Everything has not gone quite smoothly in spite of the efforts of the local secretaries. Edinburgh society is inelastic in its traditions, and Edinburgh institutions are ruled by rigid laws, which even a meeting of the British Association finds difficulty in relaxing. For the first day or two the reading and writing rooms and other apartments were closed at 5 p.m., as they occupy part of the Advocates' Library, while the reception-room being in Parliament House remained open for the usual time. Unqualified praise can be given to the commissariat arrangements. The main luncheon-room in the Students' Union was deservedly busy from 1 to 3. The handsome building containing these commodious rooms was greatly admired, and the enterprise of the students to whose efforts alone its construction is due, and by whom alone it is managed, was the subject of frequent comment. Passing between the section rooms and the Union members availed themselves of frequent opportunities to inspect the great MacEwen Hall of the University, now approaching completion, the prospective use of which, by the way, was one of the considerations that led the deputation from Edinburgh to defer to that from Cardiff in arranging the order of the Association's visits to the respective towns.