1. I had always hoped to get the accounts of the Guild cleared for it without any trouble of my own; and that, simply transmitting to the printer our banker's and accountant's statements, I might be able with a summary glance at them to inform the outside world, according to promise, of our annual prosperities and adversities. Following out this placid system too fondly,—with thrice repeated interruptions besides of absolute inability to use my brains for anything that gave them the least trouble,—I found, on my first resolute taking up these matters myself, the various printed statements with which I had to deal collected in a close pamphlet of twenty pages (nominally twenty-one, but the printers absurdly count their title-page) which I think it well to publish precisely in the form I find it—being picturesquely typical of the state of things which I suppose directors who don't direct arrive at in accounts on a larger scale.

2. I took the initial step of analysis by indexing the contents of our twenty pages as follows:—