The first meeting took place on December 5, 1707, at the Bear Tavern in the Strand; later the members met at the Young Devil Tavern in Fleet-street and at other inns. The Society was formally reconstituted in 1717. In 1751 it received the Royal Charter of Incorporation, and thirty years later George the Third granted to it the use of special apartments in the rebuilt Somerset House. After some eighty years it moved to its present quarters, Second, covering many pages of small, neat medieval script. fired.
This was not done chiefly by the Japanese themselves, but by the people from a neighbouring place who had an old-standing feud with the town, whom the Japanese brought in with them, and allowed to have their way—a method of working equally discreditable to both the parties concerned. A large proportion of the population has made its way out and taken refuge on ne bouring islands and on the coast of the mainland., Swatow itself has not even had an raid warning since the disastrous raids in the beginning of July. The number of people in the streets seems almost back to normal, except in the parts where the more prosperous folk live. Nothing has been done to repair the power-station; and, except for those fortunate ones who have their own power plant the city is back in the kerosene lamp age.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.