Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/264

 232 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920 send their lists through another Fellow ; also that it ought not to be signed, but that it should be sent by post under cover of a. letter signed by the absent Fellow. After some discussion the addition to Bye-Law 12 was passed by a large majority in the following form : " Any List addressed and posted to the Scrutineers of the Ballot by any Fellow not present at the meeting shall be accepted, if duly verified by the signature of the absent Fellow on the envelope." A second resolution, that Fellows may vote by proxy on the business brought before an Annual or a Special General Meeting, was lost by a small majority, and has not since been brought forward. Among the Fellows living at a distance and, therefore, unable to give their votes personally, there has always been a small number of foreigners residing outside the United Kingdom. In 1894 May the President ruled that foreign Fellows are eligible as Associates, and that they would not be debarred from any right which they held by virtue of their Fellowship. Six months later he stated that he had obtained an informal legal opinion as to foreigners being elected Fellow r s, to the effect that in view of its having been the custom of the Society for a considerable time, they could not now be considered ineligible. In this the Council concurred. A curious consequence of having foreign Fellows is, that a foreign astronomer of distinction, who is already a Fellow, is occasionally elected an Associate, and yet (if he has compounded) continues to remain a Fellow.* Another question in which all Fellows were equally interested was that of the composition fee. Since 1831 a Fellow who had paid his admission fee of two guineas might compound for his annual contributions by a payment of twenty guineas ; and no matter how many annual payments he had made, he had still to pay twenty guineas if he wished to compound. Though it was manifestly unfair, this arrangement remained in force for over seventy years. In 1895 the Treasurer announced to the Council that he was going to propose the raising of the composition fee to thirty guineas, with the proviso that a Fellow who had paid thirty-five annual contributions should be considered to have compounded. But he withdrew the proposal before it was laid before a meeting. Two years later a distinguished astronomer resigned his Fellowship after paying contributions for about forty years. Even this did not for a couple of years produce any effect, until the Treasurer in 1902 was directed to draw up a memorandum on the subject. This resulted in the following Astronomer of Ireland, and had (in 1869) to be elected a Fellow, while his name was omitted from the list of Associates.
 * On the other hand Briinnow, an Associate, was in 1865 appointed Royal