the
room talking and talking till the hours flew by and it became late. Mr.
Jaffray--who was rather an early man--became weary before Mr. Bright had
finished his talk. The latter probably perceived this, for with a fine
touch of humour he made for the chandelier, and said, "I see, Jaffray,
that you will never go to bed till I turn off the gas."

In searching the files of memory it is rather surprising to find how one
thought leads to another, and the long-hidden past reveals itself with
almost as much clearness as the events of yesterday. When I began to
write down these personal recollections I thought I should find little
or nothing to tell. As I proceed, however, occurrences of past years
crop up and crowd upon memory, and that to such an extent that it
becomes a question of what I shall not write rather than what I shall.

Lest, however, I become tiresome and tedious I will for the most part
"let the dead past bury its dead," and content myself with a little
chapter of history which is especially interesting to me, and may not be
without some amount of interest to others, especially those concerned in
our educational and industrial progress.

One important change that has recently taken place in what I will call
business Birmingham has brought back to my mind a throng of mixed
memories. I allude to the vicissitudes that have taken place in local
trading concerns, and I may especially mention the disestablishment or
dismemberment of the manufactory of R.W. Winfield and Co., Cambridge
Street. To see the break-up of this once large, important, and
successful concern has been a matter of some sorrow to me. And why?
Because it was at this establishment that I began my working career.
Yes, at an early age I was a junior clerk at Cambridge Street Works,
when it was the private business of the late Mr. R.W. Winfield.

At that time the manufactory was one of the largest if not _the_ largest
in Birmingham. It employed about 1,000 hands, and its operations were
carried on in several separate departments. These were the tube and
metal, the gas-fitting, the metallic bedstead, the stamped brassfoundry,
the general brassfoundry, and other departments and divisions. To my
youthful eyes it seemed to be a huge place, and, indeed, it was a big
manufactory, and had a very extensive home and foreign trade.

I do not propose now to go into details concerning the manufacturing
work done at Cambridge Street at the period of which I spe