The twenty-second session of the Inventors' Institute was opened on October 27, the chair being taken by Vice-Admiral J.H. Selwyn, one of the vice-presidents, at the rooms of the institute, Lonsdale Chambers, 27 Chancery Lane, London. The chairman, in delivering the inaugural address, said that in the absence of their president, the Duke of Manchester, it became his duty to open the session of 1885. The institute having been established in 1862, this was their twenty-second anniversary. At the time of its establishment a greater number of members were rapidly enrolled than they could now reckon, although a large number had joined since the commencement of the present year. In 1862 a considerable amount of enthusiasm on the part of inventors had arisen, from the fact that at that time the leading journals had advocated the views of certain manufacturers as to sweeping away the patent laws, enacted anew in 1852, and with them the sole protection of the inventive talent and industry of the nation. This naturally caused much excitement and interest among those chiefly concerned, and a very numerous body of gentlemen associated themselves together and formed an institute for the purpose mainly of resisting the aggression and inculcating views more in accordance with true principles, as well as for explaining what were the true relations of inventive genius to the welfare of the state. He hoped to be able to show strong reasons for this action, and for energetically following it up in the future. Although on that evening there were many visitors present besides the members of the institute, yet he thought the subject could be shown to be of such national importance that it might justly engage the attention of any assembly of Englishmen, to whatever mode of thought they might belong. The institute had persistently done its work ever since its formation. Sometimes it had failed to make itself heard, at others it had been more successful in so doing; but the net result of its labors--and he did not fear to claim it as mainly due to those labors--had been to propagate and spread abroad a fact and a feeling entirely opposed to the false doctrines previously current on the subject, namely, that among our most valuable laws were those which could excite the intelligence and reward the labors of the inventors of all nations. There were still those who wished to see the patent laws swept away, but their numbers had dwindled into a miserable minority, composed mainly of manufacturers who were so curiously short-sighted as not to see that all improvement in manufactures must come from inventive talent, or those who, still more blind, could not perceive that property created by brains was certainly not a monopoly, and deserves protection quite as much as any other form of possession, in order that it may be developed by capital. He need scarcely waste time in pointing out the fallacy of refusing to pay for the seed corn of industrial pursuits,