Editorial

The absence of Mr. Thomas Gray’s name from the first page of this issue will bring home to members that they can no longer count on his services as Editor of their Journal, services which have in fact been coéval with its life and of which the magnitude is evidenced by the eight numbers for which he was responsible.  Si monumentum requiris circumspice!

[if you seek his monument, look around -epitaph of Sir Christopher Wren in St. Paul’s, London, of which he was architect]

A Club like ours, limited alike in members and habitat, imposes special difficulties on its editor.  The place which our journal holds amongst kindred periodicals was largely due to the energy and literary skill, aided by a practical knowledge of mountaineering, which Mr. Gray brought to his work.

Nor did those difficulties diminish with time.  At its inception in 1899, we were alone in the field of, at any rate, English mountaineering journalism.  Now we share it with a band of sturdy rivals, all eager to print the by no means unlimited literary output of English climbers, whose zeal and numbers seem to increase in inverse ratio to the crop of work still ungarnered.

That we welcome such friendly rivals goes without saying, but we do not disguise from ourselves the increasing difficulties imposed by their presence.  At the same time, we gratefully recognize the wide scope conferred, as well by the title of the Club as the proclivities of its members, and not limited, as witness the current issue, to the Four Seas or even to the Upper Regions; and on behalf of the Club, we confidently bespeak of members a continuance of those efforts, physical and mental, which Mr. Gray turned to such good amount.

The Editor.