educated and maintained, have grown
greater and greater. The Irish railway companies, the directors, the
officers, and the public in Ireland, generously contribute to the funds
of the institution. I filled the office of chairman of the Irish branch
for 21 years, until in fact I retired from active railway work, since
when the chairmanship has been an annual honour conferred upon the
chairman for the year of the Irish Railway Managers' Conference. To
quote again from Mr. Mills' book on the Institution:--

"Mr. Joseph Tatlow, at the Dinner in aid of the Institution held in
Dublin on October 23rd, 1902, said: 'It is now 30 years since I first
became a collector for this Institution, and when I look back on the
past, if there is one matter in my life which contains no grain of
regret, it is my connection with the Institution, as in regard to it I
can feel nothing but honest pride and gratification.'"

I am still a member of the Irish Committee, as well as of the London
Board of Management, and those words, spoken sixteen years ago, express
my feelings to-day.

Whilst writing the final words of this chapter the news reaches me of the
death of Mr. Mills, at the fine old age of eighty-seven. He had a long
and useful life, and the railway service owes him much. He it was whose
zeal and enthusiasm firmly established the Railway Benevolent as a great
institution. When, in 1861, he became its secretary, the income was only
1,500 pounds, and on his retirement in 1897, at the age of sixty-five, it
had grown to 53,000 pounds. His mantle fell upon his son, Mr. A. E.
Mills, who inherits his father's enthusiasm and carries on the good work
with great success, as attested by the fact that for the year 1917 the
income reached 106,000 pounds. The invested funds of the society to-day
amount to upwards of a million, and in 1897 they were 476,000 pounds.

Mr. Mills senior I knew for forty years; and I often thought that, search
the world over, it would be hard to find his equal for the work to which
his life was devoted, and for which his talents were so specially
adapted.

CHAPTER XXI.
BALLINASLOE FAIR, GALWAY, AND SIR GEORGE FINDLAY

A few days before the battle of Waterloo, during the journey to Brussels,
partly by canal and partly by road, of Amelia and her party, Mrs. Major
O'Dowd said to Jos Sedley: "Talk about kenal boats, my dear! Ye should
see the kenal boats between Dublin and Ballinasloe.