The Bulletin of Co-operative Society calls attention to a circumstance which the members ought to bear in mind, namely, that the society is, so to speak, a family institution, existing only for the benefit of those connected with the university, and with no other purpose. It has not for its object any injury to the trade of dealers in Cambridge or any lowering of their general scale of prices, but merely the providing of the members with needed goods at the lowest possible cost. This seems silf-evident, but it is not always borne in mind by members or by outsiders. We learn that the superintendent has sometimes been hampered in his efforts to obtain goods from producers and wholesale dealers, by the efforts of these to prevent the trade of their retail customers from being injured by the society. A striking instance of this is the present situation in regard to stylographic pens, as described in the bulletin. Moreover, we are told that the difficulties of the superintendent in this respect have been increased by injudicious expressions on the part of members to friends and out siders, parading the advantages of the society, and the cheapness with which it supplies its members as compared with the higher charges of the retail dealers. Talk of this kind is to be regretted. It strengthens the impression that the society means to carry on a general competition with the retailers, and makes the friends and business acquaintances of the latter look unfavorably at the society. In this way it increases the difficulties of the superintendent in obtaining goods. The society exists exclusively for the benefit of persons connected with the university, and does not mean to injure any one. To a certain extent it must interfere with the trade of the Cambridge dealers; but it is no part of its object to cause them to lower their prices generally, for the benefit of the inhabitants of Cambridge at large.