Miss Susanna Willard presented, on behalf of a group of members of the Massachusetts Society of Colonial Dames, a large and beautiful volume, "The Old Silver of American Churches, by E. Alfred Jones." The names of the donors are as follows:

Mrs. Joseph Doddridge Brannan
Miss Mary Katharine Horsford
Miss Cornelia Horsford
Mrs. Abbott Lawrence Lowell
Mrs. Charles Peabody
Mrs. Joseph B. Russell

Mrs. Robert N. Toppan
Mrs. Benjamin Vaughan
Miss Bertha N. Vaughan
Mrs. Joseph Bangs Warner
Mrs. Horatio S. White
Miss Susanna Willard

Mrs. Charles Follen Folsom

HENRY HERBERT EDES announced the donation by George Vasmer Leverett of copies of Paige's "History of Cambridge" and Wyman's "Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown."

MRS. RICHARD HENRY DANA read the following paper on

THE FEMALE HUMANE SOCIETY

YOUR committee has asked me to give a short account of a very old Cambridge society, a hundred years old this year. It would have died a natural death before this, but some of the ladies wanted to keep it up until it reached its hundredth birthday. I want you to look at this old, old book which I have here and it will give you some idea of its age. The name of this society was the Female Humane Society - such a funny name. Some of us who have lived in Cambridge all our lives are so used to it that it does not seem strange, but to a newcomer it must seem very funny.

The Male Humane Society was started first in the same year, 1814, but after a few months it seems that the males did not feel able to get along without the females.

I have here in my hand an old paper kept a hundred years in the family of a dear old Cambridge lady who has kindly lent it to me to read at this meeting. It is called "Address of the Cambridge Humane Society to the Ladies in Cambridge."

"This society was recently formed to provide for the relief and comfort of the Indigent Sick. In prosecution of that design, bathing tubs, bed chairs, bed pans, and several other of the most necessary of the articles have been procured. It appearing, however, that there are often female sufferers, who could not from this source receive adequate relief, it occurred to the Society, that, were the Female Sex to co-operate in the promotion of the same object, their acquaintance with the peculiar wants and sufferings of the Sex, and their disposition to relieve distress, would greatly extend the benefit contemplated, and much more effectually accomplish the design. The object of this address, therefore, is to recommend the formation of a Female Society for the purpose of furnishing the Indigent Sick with such articles as would naturally fall within their province- to act either separately, or in co-operation with us. The main beneficial effects have been experienced in those towns, where similar institutions have been formed. The utility of this plan is apparent from the following considerations:

"First, the object of charity may, by means of such a society, be more certainly discovered, and the nature and degree of the exigency more accurately known.

"Second, the relief may be more seasonable, more sure, more direct, more constant, more appropriate, and more adequate, than if imparted by individuals.

"Third, the waste of well-intended but ill-directed charities, so often occasioned by ignorance or mistake of the true state and exigencies of the sufferer, may be prevented.

"Four, the expenditures may, therefore, be much less, and yet the amount of good actually done, much greater, than if the same objects were left to individual charity.

"Five, the manner in which a Female Society would impart relief, may be more delicate than any other, and therefore, in many instances more grateful both to the giver and to the receiver.

"Those of us, whose professions require or whose opportunities have led us to witness the sufferings of the Indigent Sick, are well assured of these several advantages of an association for their relief, above those of separate and individual charities; and deem it hardly necessary to offer a formal proof of them. Permit us briefly to observe, that where no arrangement is made, and no responsibility felt, for the relief of distress, beyond what is felt and done by humane and benevolent individuals, cases, requiring the aid of charity, may often occur that escape notice, and therefore receive no relief, which the society, founded for such an express purpose, would not fail to discover and relieve.

That, for want of seasonable or exact knowledge of the case, individuals often send, to the relief of the Indigent Sick, either too late, or too irregularly, all such articles as, instead of being salutary, are prejudicial; while the society, through some of its vigilant and discreet members, appointed to that trust, might early discover, and clearly ascertain, such cases of distress, occurring within the circle of its charities, and therefore might impart what were necessary, at the proper season, in the proper kind and quantity, and for a suitable time, and thus relieve without endangering the sufferer, and direct without wasting the bounty.

"That a pecuniary subscription, or a contribution in clothing and other necessaries, judicially managed, would meet the exigencies of the Indigent Sick, with less burden to individuals, and trouble to the community, would be more fair and equable in its operation, and better adapted to cherish general sympathy and benevolence, than private charities; and, finally, That females, while they only in frequent instances can learn the condition and wants of the female sick and administer to them suitable relief, may, in a variety of ways, for which the gentleness of their sex peculiarly qualifies and inclines them, mitigate those sufferings and soothe those sorrows, which scarcely admits any other human aid or solace. Persuaded that those, whom we address, need not motives to excite, so much as facts to inform them, in a concern, in which, it is acknowledged, they may claim precedence; we have only respectfully to express our wish, that the subject may receive special attention from them, and be so conducted, that the blessing of many ready to perish, may come upon them.'"

CAMBRIDGE, ninth of August, 1814.

You will agree with me, I think, that this is a very interesting document. It has no signature. All the ladies of Cambridge rose with wonderful alacrity to this appeal, and I should like to impose on your patience and read in the old book the list of the original subscribers, I think about sixty in all, where you may find the names of grandmothers and great-aunts and other relatives. I have been told that Mrs. Abiel Holmes, the mother of Oliver Wendell Holmes, was first President, but I do not find in this book any record of meetings or officers; only names of subscribers on one page and, on the other, donations and expenses. I will read now this first list of ladies. You will observe that they never put "Miss" or "Mrs." before the names, so we cannot tell which were the married or the unmarried ones.

The subscription was then and has been for one hundred years one dollar a year and never more, and there were never more than two or three hundred dollars gathered in a year, and yet they were able, in this small way, to help a great many people. There were some larger sums of money left to the Society by different people, and one fund, the Möring Fund, left by Mrs. Möring, the daughter of Doctor Beck, did a great deal of good work and still goes on. This fund, when the Society broke up last spring, was handed over to Mrs. Chesley, who has charge of the Paine Fund.

I should like to read a few of the things that were bought or given in that first year. Wine was a great thing; bottles of wine, gallons of wine were given out. Also we found an easy chair was bought for $9 and a bedstead for $6, a load of wood for $5.31. A little later they seem to have collected clothing to distribute among the poor people, and we find the names of funny old medicines like one-half ounce of rhad rhu, one ounce of castor oil, two ounces of manna, one ounce of aniseed, and elixir vitriol. Later money was put principally into coal and groceries, and I shall now pass on to the second book, which begins in 1864, when the Society was fifty years old. Here we find likewise, a list of subscribers with many familiar Cambridge names. The annual meeting in 1864 was held at Doctor Newell's vestry on the 25th of May. The meeting was opened by a prayer by the Reverend Doctor Hoppin. The officers elected were Mrs. Henry W. Paine, President, Mrs. Charles Folsom, Treasurer, Mrs. E. Abbot, Secretary, and for the committee Mrs. William Bates, Mrs. George Saunders, Mrs. W. T. Richardson, Mrs. Warren Colburn, Miss Maria Bowen, and Mrs. Leonard Jones.

In one of the reports it says:

"At the founding of the Society fifty years ago there were eightysix members; each subscribed one dollar. Mention is made also of liberal donations, yet it is said in the first Annual Report, 'Such has been the general state of health, and such the comfortable circumstances