The regular meetings of its members often appeared within the pages of the Mercury. 

The following report on a lecture on the Blacks of Australia appeared on pages four of the Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser on Thursday, May 16, 1878. 

“On Friday evening, May 3, a lecture, on the Blacks of Australia, was delivered in the hall of the East Maitland Mechanics’ Institute, by Mr Wilton Hack ; the President, Mr John Ewing, in the chair. 

“The chairman, in introducing the lecturer, referred to the many valuable services rendered to the people of East Maitland by Mr Hack since he had been amongst them, particularly in connection with the Literary Society, of which he was the founder, and earnestly appealed to the young present to become members of it.

“The lecture, which lasted for about an hour and a half, was attentively listened to throughout. 

“The tribes particularly described by the lecturer were those in the neighbourhood of the Coorong in South Australia; and as the natives of this continent do not vary greatly either in appearance or customs, the habits and peculiarities of the Coorong tribes may be taken as a fair sample of the aboriginals scattered throughout Australia. 

“Mr Hack concluded his lecture by reciting the words of a native corroboree.”