Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/261

 1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 229 Assembly. General meetings of the Astronomical Union are as a rule to be held every three years, and the first was held at Rome in 1922. Every worker in Astronomy will earnestly hope that this international organisation will succeed in its principal purpose, to facilitate the relations between astronomers of different coun- tries where international co-operation may be necessary or useful. II When the Society was founded, most people dined at or about five o'clock and had tea about nine o'clock. It was therefore natural that the ordinary meetings were held at eight o'clock, and that the Fellows had an informal meeting with tea afterwards, about ten o'clock. For some (now unknown) reason the Annual General Meeting in February began at three o'clock. The hour of dinner which had been in constant motion since the Middle Ages (when it was noon or n a.m.) continued to move on and changed place with the tea hour ; but the Astronomical Society stuck to the eight o'clock rule. In the days of stage-coaches country members probably did not find this inconvenient, as they could not in any case get home the same evening. But when railways came and trains multiplied, complaints began to be heard from people living at a distance from town. Early in the eighties the Royal Society changed its hour of meeting to half- past four, and soon after that the Fellows of our Society who were anxious for a change began to make their voices heard. At the Annual General Meeting in 1885, Mr. Sydney Waters proposed that the ordinary meetings should commence at five o'clock. In addition to the convenience this would be to country members it was pointed out that it was impossible to attend both the meet- ings of our Society and those of the Royal Institution. The opposition maintained that many people were engaged during the day and would not be free as early as five o'clock ; and several speakers then and during subsequent discussions said that the faces seen at the Annual Meetings (at three o'clock) were different from those seen at the ordinary meetings at eight o'clock, which was supposed to show that many members would not be able to come in the late afternoon. But the best trump card was con- sidered to be, that the Council would not be able to get through their work before the meeting ; and whenever there was also a meeting of the Library Committee, the case would become quite hopeless. As it was also denied by some, that there was a suffi- ciently general desire for a change to warrant an alteration of the Bye-Laws, it was finally decided to send out post-cards