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into the procedure of existing courts, to prevent much of the chicanery and interested delay, which still mar some branches of our judicature; but it is useful to refer to wrongs and abuses which have already been swept away, if only to induce us to be thankful for the privileges the British citizen already possesses in regard to the prompt enforcement of his legal rights with due economy.

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THE

Friday, January 31st, 1896.

ANNUAL MEETING.

HE annual meeting was held in the Chetham
Library, Mr. J. Holme Nicholson presiding.

The annual report of the Council (vol. xiii., p. 219) was read by the Hon. Secretary (Mr. G. C. Yates).

The Chairman moved the adoption of the report, and in doing so expressed a hope that some public-spirited citizens of Salford might emulate the example of Manchester and provide a mace for the borough.

Sir William H. Bailey, in seconding the motion, said the Lord Mayor and every man of taste in Manchester was pleased with the beautiful mace to which the report made reference.*

The report was adopted, as was also an abstract of the accounts submitted by the Hon. Treasurer (Mr. Thomas Letherbrow).

* Under the title of "Presentation of a Great Mace to the City of Manchester," an interesting record of this incident has been printed for circulation amongst the subscribers. It was compiled by Mr. Albert Nicholson, honorary secretary to the Insignia Committee.

Officers for the ensuing year were elected as follows:

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Mr. Thomas Kay submitted a short communication "An Earthen Vase found in Portwood or Brinnington, Stockport." Mr. Kay said: I have the honour to bring under the notice of the Society a burnt clay vase or cup, which was discovered along with two others in a mass of clay, whilst excavating the earth for a subsection of new red sandstone which underlies it. This subsection of the new red sandstone, a geological formation which extends in its Lancashire area from Liverpool to Stockport, is, at Portwood and Brinnington, a crumbling rock composed of fine sand, differing from sea sand in that every grain is rounded, like that of the desert of Sahara, by wind attrition. This sand, blown hitherto by westerly breezes, is not consolidated to the hardness of stone, but is extremely friable and is of great value for moulding iron, etc., and hence it is excavated from beneath the clay and gravel beds, which superimpose it to the depth in the case in question of about twenty-six feet. In the process

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