WCP2108

[1]¹

14, Sydney Street, Brompton, S.W.

Tuesday², June 27 — [1867]³

My dear Sir,

There was a little mistake about communications to you [on] your election at to the Ethnological Society, through the haste of our clerk. At the Anniversary Meeting of the Society⁴ a new law was adopted, placing at the discretion of the Council to elect, as a special [one illeg. word struck through] compliment to some who have distinguished themselves by their services to Ethnology, a very limited number [one illeg. word struck through] to be fellows with the full privileges of all other fellows, but not to be expected to pay any subscription. At the first council meeting after the Anniversary, we proceeded to act upon this new law, and your name was proposed and you were elected unanimously. Of course this must come spontaneously from the Council, and does not admit of any proposal of a candidate from without. As it was a new thing altogether, I was not quite sure of the form in which the election ought to be communicated, and on that account I postponed announcing it to you till after the next meeting of Council, which was yesterday, when I intended to consult the Council about it. Meanwhile, our clerk M^r Aynes[?] who sends record[?] the notices of election to the new members, had taken your name from my notes of minutes by mistake and unknown to me, and had sent you one of the ordinary diplomas. With this explanation, I hope you will accept what the council intended as a personal compliment, and allow your name to stand as one of the fellows of the Ethnological Society.

I am, my dear Sir,| very faithfully yours,| Thomas Wright [signature]

Alfred R[ussel]. Wallace, Esq