HISTORICAL RECORD.

January 15.—Annual meeting of the American Statistical Society, at Boston. Officers were elected as follows: President, Francis A. Walker; vice-presidents, George C. Shattuck and Hamilton A. Hill; corresponding secretary, Edward Atkinson; recording secretary, Carroll D. Wright; treasurer, Lyman Mason; librarian, Julius L. Clarke; counsellors, J. R. Chadwick, Benjamin F. Nourse, John Ward Dean; committee on publication, R. W. Ward, Walter C. Wright, C. D. Bradlee; finance committee, Lyman Mason, D. A. Gleason, Otis Clapp. Edward Atkinson read a paper in which he discussed the question of the cost of living, and showed that the tendency, recent and present, has been, and is, an ameliorating one.

January 16.—The Salem Athenæum proprietors held a meeting to take action on the proposed consolidation of its library with the several other private collections, for the nucleus of a public library. The proposition had already been accepted by the Essex Institute, and a committee appointed to confer with other societies. There was some discussion, and a committee, consisting of William Mack, the Rev. E. B. Willson, John Robinson, T. Frank Hunt, and Charles Osgood, was chosen by a vote of 41 to 10 to carry out the project of consolidation.

January 18.—Annual meeting of the Webster Historical Society, at the Old South Meeting-house, in Boston. Officers were elected as follows:—

President, the Hon. Joshua L. Chamberlain, of Maine.

Vice-Presidents.—The Hon. Alexander H. Rice, Massachusetts; the Hon. George F. Edmunds, Vermont; the Rev. Noah Porter, Connecticut; the Hon. Henry Howard, Rhode Island; the Hon. Austin F. Pike, New Hampshire; the Hon. James G. Blaine, Maine; the Hon. Thomas F. Bayard, Delaware; the Hon. William M. Evarts, New York; the Hon. J. Henry Stickney, Maryland; the Hon. D. W. Manchester, Ohio; the Hon. John Wentworth, Illinois; the Hon. Lucius F. Hubbard, Minnesota; the Hon. J. C. Welling, District of Columbia; the Hon. George C. Ludlow, New Jersey; General William T. Sherman, Missouri; Dr. Edward W. Jenks, Michigan; Capt. Clinton B. Sears, Tennessee; the Hon. Joseph B. Young, Iowa; the Hon. Horace Noyes, West Virginia; the Hon. James H. Campbell, Pennsylvania; the Hon. William H. Baker, New Mexico, and the Rev. Charles M. Blake, California.

Executive Committee.—The Hon. Stephen M. Allen, Edward F. Thayer, Nathaniel W. Ladd, the Hon. Edmund H. Bennett, and the Hon. Albert Palmer.

Finance Committee.—The Hon. Nathaniel F. Safford, William B. Wood, Henry P. Kidder, Edward F. Thayer, and the Hon. Alexander H. Rice.

Historiographers.—The Rev. William C. Winslow, the Rev. Edward J. Young, and the Rev. Thomas A. Hyde.

Committee on Future Work.—The Hon. Nathaniel F. Safford, the Hon. E. S. Tobey, Stillman B. Allen, the Hon. Mellen Chamberlain, and Thomas H. Cummings, Esq.

Treasurer.—Francis M. Boutwell.

Recording Clerk.—Nathaniel W. Ladd.

Corresponding Secretary.—Thomas H. Cummings.

Actuary.—William H. Colcord.

The annual address, entitled "Daniel Webster as an Orator," was then delivered by the Rev. Thomas Alexander Hyde.

January 18.—At Lowell, Mass., the Joint Special Committee of the City Council, appointed to consider the expediency of observing April 1, the fiftieth anniversary of the city's incorporation, by a formal celebration, decided that it was expedient. James Russel Lowell, who is a nephew of Francis Cabot Lowell, the founder of the city, will probably deliver the oration.

January 28, 29.—A serious ice-storm did great havoc among trees in many of the cities and towns of New England.

February 11.—Meeting of the Mass. Historical Society, the Rev. Dr. Ellis, the president, being in the chair. The death of Francis E. Parker, who had been for twenty-three years a member of the society, called forth earnest words from those who were intimately associated with him.

Mr. Quincy presented to the cabinet of the society a piece of Shakspere's mulberry-tree, which had been cut from a block that belonged to David Garrick, and was sealed with his seal (a head of Shakspere), as a witness of its authenticity. This block was presented to the distinguished actor by the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of Stratford, at the famous jubilee of 1769. Mr. Quincy gave a short sketch of Robert Balmanno, a Shaksperian scholar and collector, who possessed the original block, with Garrick's seal upon it, and whose affidavit is attached to the piece given to the society. The Hon. R. C. Winthrop presented to the society a large framed photograph of Daniel Webster, taken from an original crayon portrait which has been hanging on his own walls for forty years. The latter was drawn by Eastman Johnson at Mr. Winthrop's request, and at the very time that Healy was taking a likeness in oil for the royal gallery at Versailles. The sittings, which lasted about a week, were held in one of the old committee-rooms of Congress, down in the crypts of the Capitol. The crayon, when finished, elicited expressions of admiration from some of the most intimate friends of Mr. Webster, and it was afterwards lithographed; but this photograph is better, and is hardly less impressive than the original. The president read a letter of sympathy prepared to be sent to Gov. Hutchinson on his departure for England by some prominent citizens of Milton. An indignant protest from other citizens compelled the retraction of this letter before it was sent. These papers will appear in a history of Milton now in preparation. Mr. Deane offered a resolution from the Council that a committee be appointed to inquire into the value and extent of the labors of Mr. B. F. Stevens in publishing from the archives of the states of Europe the diplomatic correspondence and other papers relating to the United States between 1772 and 1784, and to report whether or not it be desirable for this society to take any action to encourage the work. Mr. Winsor and Dr. Green were appointed members of this committee. Dr. Moore moved that a letter once written by a committee of this society on the centennial celebration of the settlement of Boston, which does not appear on its records, be reproduced in the proceedings, since the action of this society was the first step which led to that interesting celebration.

February 13.—Meeting of the New England Historical Genealogical Society, President Wilder in the chair. The historiographer announced the decease of members, of which information had been received, viz.: Ashael Woodward, M.D., at Franklin, Conn., December 30, 1885; Ariel Low, at Boston, January 5, 1886; Nahum Capen, LL.D., at Dorchester, January 8; Francis Walker Bacon, at Boston, January 17; Edmund Batchelder Dearborn, at Boston, January 22; Henry Perkins Kidder, at New York, January 28. The corresponding secretary made a statement as to some of the more valuable gifts of books for the month, the donation of chief value being a full set of Force's "American Archives," from the Hon. M. P. Wilder. The secretary, the Rev. Mr. Slafter, also made a statement concerning the proposition recently made by Mr. Benjamin F. Stevens, an antiquarian of local celebrity, formerly resident in Vermont, but now in England. He has made a collection of titles of manuscripts relating to American affairs during the period from 1772 to 1784, which manuscripts are in the government archives of England, France, Holland, and Spain, and number 80,000 or more. Many of them are of the first historical importance, and have never been published. The proposition is that Congress shall be induced to take some measures for the printing of these indexes and the more important of the manuscripts. The society, on Mr. Slafter's motion, adopted a resolution in favor of the project, and appointed a committee to coöperate with other committees or societies in urging the matter at Washington. Mr. Slafter declined being chairman of the committee, and it was made up as follows: Abner C. Goodell, John Ward Dean, Albert H. Hoyt, Edmund F. Slafter, and Charles L. Flint. The historical essay of the session was read by Mr. S. Brainard Pratt, of Boston, and its subject was "The Bible in New England." In referring to the use of the Bible in the Sunday service, by reading of selections therefrom, he said this was for a long time resisted. The first reading of the kind was in the Brattle-street Church, in Boston, in 1699, and it was regarded as an audacious innovation, as savoring of Presbyterianism, and being but little better than Episcopalianism in disguise. The next church to adopt the practice was that of South Reading, in 1645, and the next was in 1669, when the Old South Church, in Boston, took up with it. The progress of the movement was very slow, as is indicated by these facts, and the fact that in the South Parish Church, of Ipswich, there was no reading of Scripture, as a part of the service, until the year 1826. The essayist said there have been 326 versions, of varying editions, of the New and Old Testaments, or both, published in New England, namely: In Rhode Island, 1; Maine, 12; Vermont, 18; New Hampshire, 25; Connecticut, 83; Massachusetts, 187. There yet remains one in manuscript, of great interest, which the enterprise and wealth of Boston have never yet given to the world in type. That is the version prepared by Cotton Mather, and the manuscript of which is in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

February 13-16.—Floods did great damage in Boston and other places in Eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.