The Chairman: Before I introduce the Lecturer, there is a subject which must be mentioned, and which I have not the least doubt you have anticipated in your thoughts. I refer to the death of our lamented and honoured President, Dr. William Hayman Cummings. I am afraid that it is not at all uncommon, for such is human nature, to brush the news of a death aside as soon as we hear it, and go on at once with our usual occupations. Especially is there a tendency to do so when death has become cheap, as it is to-day through the prevailing great world-tragedy. But I am sure that neither you nor I are in a mood to take the present occurrence so. There are times when the finger of Death seems actually to touch us : when he comes, that is to say, into the family, or when things happen before our eyes. I think we may say that we are in a sense almost of the same family with the late President, looking to the intimate way in which he was mixed up with a large variety of interests where we also have been concerned. (Hear, hear.) To speak only of the institutions where he occupied quite a foremost place, there are the Royal Society of Musicians, the Royal Philharmonic Society, the Incorporated Society of Musicians, the Society of Antiquaries, the Musical News Syndicate, and our own Association.