Decline of Science in England [35]
opinion of the value from extraneous circumstances. Had their importance been at all equal to their number, I should have expected to have heard amongst the learned of other countries much more frequent mention of them than I have done, and even the Council of the Royal Society would scarcely have excluded from their Transactions one of those productions which they had paid for as a lecture.
It might also have been more delicate not to have placed on the Council so repeatedly a gentleman, for whose engravings they were annually expending, during the last twenty years, about an hundred pounds. On the other hand, when the Council lent Sir E. Home the whole of those valuable plates to take off impressions for his large work on Comparative Anatomy, of which they constitute almost the whole, it might have been as well not to have obliterated from each plate all indication of the source to which he was indebted for them.
THE PRESIDENT'S DISCOURSES.--I shall mention this circumstance, because it fell under my own observation.
Observing in the annual accounts a charge of 381L 5s. for the President's Speeches, I thought it right to inquire into the nature of this item. Happening to be on the Council the next year, I took an opportunity, at an early meeting of that Council, to ask publicly for an explanation of the following resolution, which stands in the Council-books for Dec. 21, 1828.
"Resolved, That 500 copies of the President's Discourses, about to be printed by Mr. Murray, be purchased by the Society, at the usual trade price."
The answer given to that question was, "THAT THE COUNCIL HAD AGREED TO PURCHASE THESE VOLUMES AT THAT PRICE, IN ORDER TO INDUCE MR. MURRAY TO PRINT THE PRESIDENT'S SPEECHES."
I remarked at the time that such an answer was quite unsatisfactory, as the following statement will prove.
The volume consists of 160 pages, or twenty sheets, and the following prices are very liberal:
L s. d. To composing and printing twenty sheets, at 3L. per sheet........... .... 60 0 0 Twenty reams of paper, at 3L. per ream ..... 60 0 0 Corrections, alterations, &c. ......... 30 0 0
Total cost of 500 copies ...... 150 0 0
Now upon the subject of the expense of printing, the Council could not plead ignorance. The Society are engaged in printing, and in paying printers' bills, too frequently to admit of such an excuse; and several of the individual members must have known, from their own private experience, that the cost of printing such a volume was widely different from that they were about to pay, as an inducement to a bookseller to print it on his own account. Here, then, was a sum of above two hundred pounds beyond what was necessary for the object, taken from the funds of the Royal Society; and for what purpose? Did the President and his officers ever condescend to explain this transaction to the Council; or were they expected, as a matter of course, to sanction any thing proposed to them? Could they have been so weak, or so obedient, as to order the payment of above three hundred and eighty pounds, to induce a bookseller to do what they might have done themselves for less than half the sum? Or did they wish to make Mr. Murray a present of two hundred pounds? If so, he must have had powerful friends in the Council, and it is fit the Society should know who they were; for they were not friends, either to its interests or to its honour.
The copies, so purchased, were ordered by the Council to be sold to members of the Society at 15s. each: (the trade price is 15s. 3d.) and out of the five hundred copies twenty-seven only have been sold: the remainder encumber our shelves. Thus, after four years, the Society are still losers of three hundred and sixty Pounds on this transaction.
ON THE CONVERSION OF THE GREENWICH OBSERVATIONS INTO PASTEBOARD. --Although the printing of these observations is not paid for out of the funds of the Royal Society, yet as the Council of that body are the
It might also have been more delicate not to have placed on the Council so repeatedly a gentleman, for whose engravings they were annually expending, during the last twenty years, about an hundred pounds. On the other hand, when the Council lent Sir E. Home the whole of those valuable plates to take off impressions for his large work on Comparative Anatomy, of which they constitute almost the whole, it might have been as well not to have obliterated from each plate all indication of the source to which he was indebted for them.
THE PRESIDENT'S DISCOURSES.--I shall mention this circumstance, because it fell under my own observation.
Observing in the annual accounts a charge of 381L 5s. for the President's Speeches, I thought it right to inquire into the nature of this item. Happening to be on the Council the next year, I took an opportunity, at an early meeting of that Council, to ask publicly for an explanation of the following resolution, which stands in the Council-books for Dec. 21, 1828.
"Resolved, That 500 copies of the President's Discourses, about to be printed by Mr. Murray, be purchased by the Society, at the usual trade price."
The answer given to that question was, "THAT THE COUNCIL HAD AGREED TO PURCHASE THESE VOLUMES AT THAT PRICE, IN ORDER TO INDUCE MR. MURRAY TO PRINT THE PRESIDENT'S SPEECHES."
I remarked at the time that such an answer was quite unsatisfactory, as the following statement will prove.
The volume consists of 160 pages, or twenty sheets, and the following prices are very liberal:
L s. d. To composing and printing twenty sheets, at 3L. per sheet........... .... 60 0 0 Twenty reams of paper, at 3L. per ream ..... 60 0 0 Corrections, alterations, &c. ......... 30 0 0
Total cost of 500 copies ...... 150 0 0
Now upon the subject of the expense of printing, the Council could not plead ignorance. The Society are engaged in printing, and in paying printers' bills, too frequently to admit of such an excuse; and several of the individual members must have known, from their own private experience, that the cost of printing such a volume was widely different from that they were about to pay, as an inducement to a bookseller to print it on his own account. Here, then, was a sum of above two hundred pounds beyond what was necessary for the object, taken from the funds of the Royal Society; and for what purpose? Did the President and his officers ever condescend to explain this transaction to the Council; or were they expected, as a matter of course, to sanction any thing proposed to them? Could they have been so weak, or so obedient, as to order the payment of above three hundred and eighty pounds, to induce a bookseller to do what they might have done themselves for less than half the sum? Or did they wish to make Mr. Murray a present of two hundred pounds? If so, he must have had powerful friends in the Council, and it is fit the Society should know who they were; for they were not friends, either to its interests or to its honour.
The copies, so purchased, were ordered by the Council to be sold to members of the Society at 15s. each: (the trade price is 15s. 3d.) and out of the five hundred copies twenty-seven only have been sold: the remainder encumber our shelves. Thus, after four years, the Society are still losers of three hundred and sixty Pounds on this transaction.
ON THE CONVERSION OF THE GREENWICH OBSERVATIONS INTO PASTEBOARD. --Although the printing of these observations is not paid for out of the funds of the Royal Society, yet as the Council of that body are the