The winter season precluded the front porch rocking chair conferences of last summer and since the past autumn the group's confabs had been replaced with side-of-the-bed meetings in the Deans' quarters.
In a variety of ways it does a great deal of social service similar to that of gilds of help. Its administration has always been in the hands of laymen, and it works through local "conferences" or branches, the general council having been suspended because it declined to accept a cardinal as its official head.
He appeared, however, only once at its conferences, owing to his age and to disappointment at the comparative failure of his work.
Since the early days of international telegraphy, conferences of representatives of government telegraph departments and companies have been held from time to time (Paris 1865, Vienna 1868, Rome 1871 and 1878, St Petersburg 1875, London 1879, Berlin 1885,1885, Paris 1891, Buda Pesth 1896, London 1903).
For the "Pan-Anglican Synods" see Lambeth Conferences.
