Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/682

662 payment secures admission to all lectures delivered in the Institution, to the libraries, and to the weekly evening meetings, with certain other privileges—such as the right of admitting two friends to the Friday evening meetings—a privilege often abused on occasions when a lion of unusual magnitude is about to roar. An inferior kind of member is the annual subscriber, who enjoys most of the privileges above named, with the exception of admission to the weekly meetings, from which sublime gatherings he is excluded. Other persons are suffered to subscribe to the afternoon lectures at the very moderate price of two guineas for all courses of lectures from Christmas to midsummer, but are not allowed to show themselves elsewhere than in the lecture theatre, and never there on a Friday night.

This weekly meeting is a wonderful combination of science and society, of physics and fashion, albeit once in a while a printer or photographer manages to obtain permission to dilate on the excellence of his wares, and to thus advertise himself. Nevertheless, in spite of an occasional drawback of this kind, the Friday evening lectures are of sufficiently high class to please all but a purely scientific audience. It is clear that to gratify the members—who are, after all, mere flesh and blood, and not philosophical abstractions—concessions to popular taste and feeling must occasionally be made. Thus, while all may equally enjoy a lecture on the "Acoustic Transparency and Opacity of the Atmosphere"—a subject which, in its practical relation to fog-signals, is full of general interest—those of a higher and drier turn of mind experience ineffable delight when Prof. Sylvester holds forth on the conversion of circular into parallel motion; while the noble army of simple lion-hunters rush not only to hear, but to see, Sir Samuel Baker. On this particular night I find all the approaches to Albemarle Street blocked by carriages, and on making my way into the Royal Institution find the theatre fully occupied at a quarter-past eight o'clock, or three-quarters of an hour before the time of the lecture. With the exception of a few seats reserved for the two Boards of Managers and Visitors, the hall is crowded to the ceiling, every avenue being already jammed with a dense mass of people, among whom gay opera cloaks and Angot caps largely predominate over black coats and showy shirt-fronts. A few young men are visible, but, after standing about for a while, and finding it impossible to approach their far friend, these youths vanish through the crowded door-way and are seen no more, thus leaving the entire field clear to the British matron, who prevails to-night to an extent that would have struck terror into the soul of poor Nathaniel Hawthorne. There is no inconsiderable amount of crowding and pushing in this elegant throng, and I am forcibly reminded of the saying of a certain philosopher—who has seen men and cities, and the customs of them—that "a well-dressed crowd is a rude crowd."

So thoroughly and completely packed is every bench, step, and