If more active and more useful men could be found to serve as managers in lieu of two or three of ours who seldom or never attend, I think it would be advisable to accept their resignation. _One_ has _privately_ offered me to resign whenever I may wish it, and I should think it would not be difficult to persuade two others to follow the example. But we will talk this matter over when we meet. I have been very busy here for the last fortnight putting up a public kitchen in the town of Romsey. It is now nearly finished, and begins to attract public curiosity. As it contains a complete well-arranged kitchen for a private family as well as cottage fire-places, German stoves, nests of small ovens, large soup boilers, &c., it almost deserves the name of a public repository, and I have no doubt but it will be useful as such. If Webster were here for a few days, he might take drawings of the whole for the use of the Royal Institution. A week after he wrote: ‘I am expecting the arrival of Webster every moment. I am glad you have sent him here, for the drawings he will make of the works that have been executed in the Romsey public kitchen will save me much trouble (for I must have made them), and his seeing the kitchen here will enable him to be of great use to me in directing the works in Albemarle Street.’ On February 3 Count Rumford was again present. Doubtless the following passage in the Managers’ Minutes refers to him: ‘The unfortunate illness and long confinement of one of the managers, whose zeal had been so conspicuous in the formation and success of the Institution, was another obstacle to the commencement of many interesting arrangements, which he necessarily considered as essential to superintend in person.’ The same day Sir John Hippesley made a long report to the managers to be laid before the proprietors of the Institution on the 10th. He alluded to a proposal for private boxes in the new theatre, and spoke of accommodating nearly 1,000 persons, and said that the floor under the theatre was for a repository, and that the sunk floor of the new building was designed for a complete laboratory, ‘which unfortunately this great metropolis of the British Empire has hitherto failed to produce, but which is an essential appendix to the Royal Institution.’ It was proposed to raise 5,000_l._ by transferable debentures, and the sum subscribed during the meeting was 5,200_l._ At the next meeting a building committee, consisting of Earl Morton, Count Rumford, and Sir J. Hippesley, was appointed. The following week this was made to include all the managers.