DEAR CAPTAIN TOBIN:—I regret to say that it will be practically impossible to go to Boston. I cannot very well leave all the work I have on hand, and I must go back again the following week, for Monday, the 25th, to Hartford. But I am entirely in favor of the good work, and I hope that from the beginning it will be a success. I regret again very much that so many duties all crowd in on the end of January, and make it impossible to be with so many men of one mind and one race next Wednesday. If members are proposed, please put me down as one. Yours sincerely, THOMAS J. SHAHAN. Judge Smith, of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, wrote: “I have just read the letter which you kindly sent me, giving in outline the scope and purpose of the proposed Historical Society and bearing the names of many distinguished citizens. I am very much pleased with the project and gratified to see that so many eminent gentlemen have become interested in the movement, and regret that official duties will prevent my attendance at the initial meeting. That the undertaking is needful and timely, the letter well demonstrates, and the broad foundation indicated will undoubtedly attract the moral and material support of all American citizens who want nothing but the truth recorded and preserved in the archives of history. May success attend the noble work of vindicating the worth and memory of a superior race!” Henry Stoddard Ruggles, of Wakefield, wrote: