On the subject of "members of Council," I do not agree with either "D." or your correspondent "Blue Pendant." The Council should be elected from and by the body of members, and the only qualifications necessary should be willingness and ability to do the work required. No consideration of class should ever be admitted. The members are all recommended by "personal knowledge," and elected by ballot, and that alone should be test sufficient on the score of respectability. Concerning "papers written as puffs," I cordially agree with "Blue Pendant" as far as he goes; but I go further than that, and would insist on each paper being scrutinised, before it is read, by a committee appointed for the purpose, so as to prevent "trade advertisements" and such shamefully scurrilous papers as I have heard at the South London Photographic Society. With reference to the questions put by "Blue Pendant," I beg to decline answering his second, it not being pertinent; but I shall reply to his first more particularly. He seems to have forgotten or overlooked the fact that I thought the advantages I enumerated would result from a union of the _three_ societies--not from an alliance of the two only. That I still look upon suspiciously as antagonistic to the Parent Society; and "Blue Pendant's" antagonism is proved beyond doubt when he says it is "tottering to its fall," and he almost gloatingly looks forward to its dissolution coming, to use his own words, "sooner or later," and "perhaps the sooner the better." But I venture to think that "Blue Pendant" is not likely to be gratified by seeing the "aged Parent" decently laid in the ground in his time. There is too much "life in the old dog yet"--even since the secession--for that to come to pass. It cannot be denied that the Parent Society has amongst its members some of the best speakers, thinkers, writers, and workers in the whole photographic community.