Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/122

 ioo HISTORY OF THE [1840-50 and reveal the Society suddenly confronted by a most real and substantial danger. A gang of informers had laid an infor- mation against some of the members ; its tenour is not quoted, but one of the members, Gompertz, afterwards told De Morgan that the charge was for taking money for an unlicensed enter- tainment, being a philosophical lecture. The members, about forty or fifty in number, raised in a few days a voluntary guarantee fund of 254, one of them undertook without payment the pro- fessional part of the defence, and the informers were beaten off at a cost of about 43 in expenses. These vermin do not seem to have been liable to any punishment for their baseless charge, for they went away threatening to return to the attack. But though the charge was rebutted, it appears to have carried with it a certain scandal, for we find it noted that the " produce of the lectures delivered in 1799-1800 had been very materially diminished by the effect of the information lodged against several of the members by the Gang of Informers, who have occasioned so much trouble and expense to the Society during the past year." The Society, which was very straightforward and democratic in its constitution, levied a charge of threepence a week on each member, calculating that in about eighteen months that would repay what some of them had advanced to meet the expenses. Some of our Minutes refer to the " respectability " of the Mathematical Society. That it was fully " respectable " in the modern sense may be conceded. Among the motions in its Minute-books is one " that every member who may so far forget himself in the warmth of debate as to threaten or offer personal violence to any other member, be liable to be expelled." But that, after all, is an evidence of the desire to keep good order. In 1802 an applica- tion was made and agreed to, to hire the premises, when not in use, for the purposes of a Sunday School. The Society was united on a democratic and social footing. There is little or no academical trace in its membership. De Morgan says it consisted originally of Spitalfields weavers, but of these there is no trace after 1800. The new admissions seem to have been, indifferently, tradesmen and professional men from the immediate neighbourhood. Thus we find several surgeons and attorneys, a wine merchant, a mason, a tinplate worker, a hair- dresser, a chemist and druggist, a mathematical-instrument maker, a watch-case maker, a watchmaker, a " plaisterer," a painter, a dyer, an Exchange broker, a glass-cutter, a schoolmaster, apparently any ingenious man of any occupation was welcome. Two intriguing occupations are " Gentleman of the Prerogative Office," and " Galenical Operator in Apothecaries' Hall." There are no distinguished names.