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Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge.—Sends a contribution to the Clifford fund. Discusses Tait's criticisms of Mayer.

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Cavendish Laboratory
Cambridge
12 April 1876

Dear Pollock

I enclose £5 for the Clifford Fund. I hope that a slight displacement of his position on the earth’s surface may bring him into a milder air and one less stimulating than that at Gower Street, {1} so that as his oscillations between elliptic and hyperbolic space gradually subside he may find himself settling back again into that parabolic space wherein so many great and good men have been content to dwell, and may long enjoy the 3 treasures of the said great & good men as enumerated by S.T.C. {2}

The gospel according to Peter G. T. {3} although somewhat entêté {4} in the places where old controversies are fought over again is much sounder than it sounds when read aloud. The habit of lecturing generates a peculiar jargon which, when taken down by a reporter, looks strange. Tail† has always been proving that Mayer used inconclusive reasoning when he made an estimate of the dynamical equivalent of heat, {1} whereas Joule was on firm ground all along.

Hence Mayer should not have many marks for this piece of his work. But Mayer sent up ingenious answers to a great many questions propounded by nature, many wrong some right, but all clever. The strict examiner gives him but small credit for these but the historian of science must take account of the amount of good work by others which followed on the publication of Mayers† papers.

Now one man thinks most of the credit to be assigned to each individual as his property while another thinks most of the advance of science which is often associated by the noise even of fools, which directs wiser men to good diggings.

Yours truly
J Clerk Maxwell

[Direction on envelope:] F Pollock Esqre | 12 Bryanston Street | London W.

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The envelope was postmarked at Cambridge on 12 April 1876, and has been marked in pencil ‘Clerk Maxwell’.

{1} Comma supplied, in place of a full stop.

{2} Coleridge’s poem ‘Reproof’ contains the following lines:

Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The great good man?—three treasures, love, and light,
And calm thoughts, regular as infant’s breath

{3} Peter Guthrie Tait.

{4} Obstinate (Fr.).

{5} This is probably the intended reading, but what is written resembles ‘Tail’.

† Sic.

(On the sheet used as a wrapper is a list of ‘Arrangements suggested by the members of the Bachelor’s Table [in the Hall at Trinity College] for regulating the introduction of Guests’, also in Clifford’s hand.)

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Transcript

1. The club shall be called the republican club.

2. Republicanism shall be taken to mean hostility to the hereditary principle as exemplified in monarchical and aristocratic institutions and to all social and political privileges depending upon difference of sex.

3. The profession of republican opinions shall be the only qualification for membership.

4. The club shall meet at dinner at 7 on three Wednesdays in the October and Lent terms, and on one in the May term.

Resolved The first dinner shall be held on Wednesday 23 Nov 1870.

5. At the beginning of every Oct Term a secretary shall be elected by ballot.

6. The sec. shall give at least 4 days notice of the place of the next dinner.

7. Each member shall be required to inform the secretary 2 days before the dinner whether he intends to be present. If he neglect to give notice of his intentions he shall be fined 5/-.

8. The secretary shall have the power of giving notice of subjects for discussion after the dinner. The discussion shall be carried on in a conversational manner, and must refer to some social or political subject.

9. Smoking shall be allowed after 10.

10. The secretary shall have the power at the request of three members, to invite a stranger sympathising with the objects of the club to the dinner.

11. No undergraduate shall be admitted to the club either as a member or as a stranger.

12. The club shall consist of [blank] original members. Candidates hereafter proposed at one meeting of the club shall be ballotted for at the next, and to be elected must be voted for by three-fourths of those present. The secretary shall give notice of the names of candidates for election.

13. Each member shall pay an annual subsc. of 5/–.

14. Any proposed alteration of the rules shall be given notice of at the previous meeting, to be carried must be voted for by a majority of the club.

Original Members {1}

Prof. Fawcett
H. Jackson
C H Pearson
G R Crotch
P T Main
W K Clifford—secretary
John Hatcher Moulton

[Written on the back of the wrapper:]

Arrangements suggested by the members of the Bachelors’ Table for regulating the introduction of Guests.

1. Every bachelor desirous of introducing a guest shall give notice to the Senior bachelor not later than at hall the day before.

2. The senior bachelor shall admit, according to priority of application, so many guests as, upon the testimony of the hall butler, there shall be room for.

3. The cook’s and combination butlers† account for the dinner of each guest shall be charged to the bachelor introducing him.

[Manicule.] It is proposed that the charge from the table for each guest be 2/6 on ordinary days and 3/ on feast days; notice of these being given by the senior bachelor as at present.

4. No members of Trinity College shall be introduced as Guests.

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The wrapper is docketed ‘WKC | Dft rules | Cambridge | Republican Club | (1870) | &c’.

{1} The names of Jackson and Pearson are each followed by a black mark. Moulton’s name was added in a different hand.

† Sic.

Incomplete: end missing.

Comprising: settlement of fortune on marriage of Mary Ellen Parker and Edward Joseph Rose; appointment of trustees; release by Mary Ellen Rose of trust premises under marriage settlement.

Author unknown.