We are aware that this request involves a departure from your general disposition of the periodical addresses of your members, but we beg to suggest that the general interest of the present production renders a departure from your usual course not invidious, but a duty which we humbly think you owe to philanthropy. In support of our opinion, we take the liberty of enclosing you a letter from a distinguished fellow-citizen in Albany, who also accidentally saw the address: and we are, Gentlemen, With very great respect, your ob't serv'ts, A. B. JOHNSON, D. C. LANSING, HIRAM DENIO, R. R. LANSING, EDM'D A. WETMORE, WILLIAM WILLIAMS, SAM'L D. DAKIN. UTICA, Feb. 27, 1830. * * * * * Lydius Street, Albany, } Friday Evening, January 22d, 1830. } DEAR SIR, I have just completed an attentive perusal of the manuscript _discourse on tobacco_, which you handed to me this afternoon; and I really feel obliged to the author for the interest and instruction which it has afforded me. I am sincerely of opinion that the respectable society before whom it was delivered, owe it to themselves, to the public, and to the author, (if they have not already done so,) to request its publication. And, favorably as it leads me to think of the author's intellectual and professional endowments, he must be still more distinguished for his _modesty_, if he declines a compliance with such a request. He has treated a highly important subject, in a clear, forcible, and striking manner; and the public are deeply concerned in knowing what he has said of it. I will only add, that in point of literary execution, it is, in my judgment, most decidedly respectable, and would in that respect reflect no discredit upon any medical gentleman in this state. Very respectfully and truly yours, &c. &c. A. CONKLING. R. R. Lansing, Esq. * * * * * At a meeting of the Medical Society of the County of Oneida, on the 5th of March, 1830, a communication was received, signed by a number of highly respectable gentlemen from this and other counties of this state, on the subject of a dissertation delivered before this society, at their late semi-annual meeting, by Dr. McAllister, "on the properties and effects of tobacco." The communication was referred to a committee. The committee reported, "That although dissertations so delivered became the properly of the society, yet believing as we do, that the subject is one of great importance, and the dissertation highly meritorious, and as we have not funds to defray the expense of publication, we will cheerfully relinquish our claim thereto in favor of our correspondents, and cordially unite with them in the desire which they have expressed to us, 'that the dissertation be published in a pamphlet form,' for their gratification and the benefit of the public."