A reader asks about 27 May

A correspondent in Grant Park, who asked not to be named and who I gather reads this site more carefully than we write it, wrote to point out something in Item 14.

Item 14 is the loose sheet, dated 6 January 1931, in a hand that matches nothing else in the collection. It carries a list of nine dates in 1927 and 1928. The ninth is 27 May, and 27 May is written twice.

Our correspondent observes that in January we wrote to the working group asking for the minutes of a session held on 27 May, and that we have not had a reply.

It is a coincidence. I want to say that first and without qualification. There are three hundred and sixty-five dates and we have written nine letters. A recurrence like this is what probability looks like from close up, and the fact that it feels like something is a property of us, not of the calendar.

I have gone back to the sheet anyway, because the letter deserved a real answer. Six of the nine dates correspond to entries in the survey notebook. Two correspond to nothing in the collection. The two instances of 27 May are in the same hand but not the same ink, which tells us the sheet was written on more than one occasion and tells us nothing else.

The 1927 minutes at Item 10 record a vote of the membership. The tally is given as seven to one. The question is not stated.

I am aware of how a paragraph like that reads. I include it because our correspondent will find it within the week if I do not, and I would rather they found it here.