relieve the Society from any financial anxiety upon its account. It is probable that the sum of $15,000 would be sufficient. It is suggested that an appeal be made for subscriptions to a fund for this definite purpose.

The Committee has caused the proceedings and the obituaries of deceased members to be published and distributed in the usual form and manner.

THE Rev. William C. Winslow, D.D., LL.D., D.C.L., chairman of the COMMITTEE ON MEMORIALS, reports that there are still lacking sufficient memoirs of members long deceased to form another volume in the series. He thinks that, with a few exceptions, efforts should now be directed only to securing such biographies where relatives or friends of the deceased will readily furnish them.

If the able Historiographer and his Committee will hereafter obtain memoirs or records of all members dying during a year to be reported on by him, will not the above suggestion meet with the approval of our Society? The most untiring efforts cannot secure records of all deceased members; nor a memorial sketch of quite a large number of those some time or long deceased.

Rev. Silvanus Hayward, A.M., Chairman, reports that the COMMITTEE APPOINTED TO ASSIST THE HISTORIOGRAPHER, acting under his direction, have prepared or are now preparing sketches of deceased members, as follows :-Rev. George M. Bodge, on Erastus Emmons Gay, and Frank Morton Ames; Rev. Anson Titus, on William Stevens Perry, and Lyman Willard Densmore; Mr. William R. Cutter, on Franklin Stiles Phelps; Rev. William S. Heywood, on Rev. Andrew Oliver; Rev. Charles H. Pope, on Philip Howes Sears; Rev. Charles L. Mitchell, on John Allister McAllister; and the Chairman, on William Ewart Gladstone.

Henry E. Woods, Chairman, reports that the COMMITTEE ON HERALDRY has but little to report except that the usurping of heraldic

distinctions in this country seems to be on the increase, and that the number of heraldic queries expands in proportion; but the following brief statement regarding the bearing of arms, prepared by request of the Council of the Society, will no doubt lessen queries in the future:

As there is no person and no institution in the United States with authority to regulate the use of coats of arms, your Committee discourages their display in any way or form.

Prior to the Revolution, as subjects of a government recognizing heraldry, certain of the inhabitants were entitled to bear coats of arms; but only such as were grantees of arms, or who could prove descent in the male line from an ancestor to whom arms were granted or confirmed by the Heralds.

Females did not regularly bear arms, but the daughter of an arms-bearing father could use the paternal coat in a lozenge. When she married, such arms did not descend to her children (except by special authority), unless she were an heiress marrying an armiger, and then only as a quartering of her husband's arms.

The mere fact that an individual possessed a painting of a coat of arms, used it upon plate, or as a bookplate or seal, or had it put upon his gravestone, is not proof that he had a right to it.

Proof of right must either be found in the Heralds' records or be established by authenticated pedigree direct from an armiger.

A coat of arms did not belong with a family name, but only to the particular family, bearing the name, to whose progenitor it had been granted or confirmed; and it was as purely individual a piece of property as a homestead. Hence it was as ridiculous to assume arms without being able to prove the right, as it would now be to make use of a representation of the Washington mansion at Mt. Vernon, and claim it as having been the original property of one's family, unless bearing the name of Washington and being of the line of those who owned it.

The COMMITTEE ON FINANCE, through William Tracy Eustis, its Chairman pro tempore, reports that all the bills due by the Society, duly approved, have been paid, the details of which will appear in the Treasurer's account.

There has been paid to the Treasurer, D. W. Gorman's mortgage note 6th April for fifteen hundred dollars; and a gift from Mr. Wm. C. Todd of one thousand dollars, Sept. 7, 1898, and an investment was made of twenty-five shares of Chicago, Burlington and Quincy R.R. stock at $89.75 per share, market value to-day at $124.37.

The Treasurer took possession of the property secured by the Carruth mortgages, three houses, which are let to good paying tenants for an amount exceeding the interest and taxes.

The Chairman visited the executor of the estate of George Plumer Smith, Mr. Hutton, Philadelphia. He finds that there may be a claim against the estate by some disappointed heirs, which, if allowed, will probably reduce the sum willed about one thousand dollars, leaving nine thousand to be received.

The COMMITTEE ON THE CABINET, through Myles Standish, A.M., M.D., Chairman, reports that this Committee has had no funds at its disposal during the past year, and such work as has been accomplished has been done by the individual members of the Committee. There have been several displays made during the year which have attracted attention and favorable comment. The Committee is glad to report that substantial progress has been made, under the direction of the librarian, with such funds as were at his disposal, in arranging and making accessible the contents of the safe; and that now such manuscript books, and other valuable works as are on the shelves in the safe, have been methodically arranged and can be found and consulted without delay or confusion.

As was reported last year by this Committee, the greater proportion of all the articles in the drawers of the safe which are under the direct care of this Committee, were gathered together, placed in separate drawers, and catalogued. During this year Mr. Charles Damon Elliot, a member of this Committee, has voluntarily undertaken to help forward the rough list of the remaining articles contained in these drawers, so that an intelligent method of finally arranging and cataloguing can be undertaken later when the contents of the drawers shall have been determined. Mr. Elliot took up the work where Mr. Henry Winchester Cunningham and

Mr. Francis Everett Blake of the Library Committee were obliged to stop a few years since, and has inventoried approximately onehalf of the remaining drawers. A proper catalogue of the contents of these drawers would throw open to original investigators a large mass of manuscript of great importance in the sort of work which this Society was formed to encourage.

There have been formed in the course of this work, and in other places in the building, other unidentified objects of interest which should have the attention of an expert investigator, in order that they may be catalogued and assigned permanent places in the drawers devoted to the cabinet.

The Committee would again urge upon the Council the need of a proper catalogue of the paintings and engravings and other objects hanging on the walls of the Society's rooms.

THE COMMITTEE ON THE ROLLS OF MEMBERSHIP, George Kuhn Clarke, LL.B., reports that much time was devoted early in the year to preparing "an alphabetical list of the present members of the Society" to "be printed with the proceedings of this day," in accordance with a vote of the Society at its annual meeting in January. The "list" duly appeared in the proceedings, and the Society also issued a limited number of reprints of this list. Your Committee desiring to perfect the Rolls, no easy task, continued his labors during the summer and autumn, and had privately printed an edition of two hundred copies of the Rolls corrected to July 1, 1898, which was ready for distribution December 9, 1898, and is being circulated among our members and sent to other historical societies. On December 13, 1898, our Society consisted of 264 Life members, 586 Resident members, 11 Honorary members and 121 Corresponding members; a total membership of 982. During the year, forty women have become members and nine of them are now Life members. Of the women, twenty-six are married or are widows.

In closing I would call attention to the wise policy of the Council, which for ten years has elected but few Honorary and Corresponding members, thus making these memberships valued and sought by eminent and genealogical students.

REPORT OF THE LIBRARIAN.

PRESENTED BY JOHN WARD DEAN, A.M.

During the year 1898 the collections in the Library and the Cabinet of the Society have been increased by the following accessions:

In the report of the Librarian for the year 1895 it was estimated that the Library contained 24,311 volumes and 18,816 pamphlets. Adding to this estimate the accessions for the years 1896, 1897 and 1898, we now have about 26,375 volumes and 23,385 pamphlets in the Library.

The REGISTER continues to be an invaluable aid to the Library. Many volumes and pamphlets, including the larger part of those devoted to American family history, are presented to the Society for review in that periodical. Even a brief notice in our magazine is considered valuable by publishers of family and local histories as