merous gains to
Scotland in matches with England and Wales.

Since this meeting of Bob and Frank, however, the said Black-and-Whites
have got pretty far forward with a new ground quite close to Hampden
Park, and it is now being levelled up and put into condition. The
railway embankment referred to is part of the Cathcart Railway, which
will assist very considerably in opening up rapid communication between
Glasgow and the whole of the suburban burghs lying south.

While referring to the Southern Suburbs, which, it may be mentioned, are
closely associated with the rise and progress of Association Football,
I cannot refrain from alluding to several genial souls who have helped
to make them what they are. None, however, is entitled to claim more
consideration and credit than Provost Goodfellow, of Suburbopolis, whose
official life, so to speak, has been spent in the cause of suburban
organisation, accompanied, of course, with a due regard for Association
Football.

You must know, my brave Scotch readers, and those hailing from South of
the Tweed, that the Provost of a Scotch burgh or town occupies the exact
position of the English Mayor. He is the head of the municipality, and
is, in fact, a kind of ruler of all he surveys, but about his "right to
dispute," particularly when the November election comes on, why that is
purely a matter of opinion.

Well, the ruler of Suburbopolis was not a despotic man. He was certainly
a little pedantic, and who, I should like to know, would not be inclined
to lean that way if they had taken part in a great annexation fight with
the chiefs of the big bouncing city of Glasgow, and beaten them too?

Some years ago, it may be briefly explained, the Glasgow authorities
devised a scheme, whereby all the suburban burghs were to be taken under
the wing of Glasgow and lose their entire independence, and
Suburbopolis, being close on the touch-line, was to be attacked first.
Glasgow, in fact, was to act as the veritable annaconda, and swallow it
up, but she didn't.

Scotch Radicals, talking politically, had not hitherto much faith in
what they considered an effete hereditary legislature, such as the House
of Lords, but if there was one thing more than another calculated to
bring about a Conservative reaction among the Glasgow suburban
authorities, it was the attention paid to their vested interests by the
Peers.

The Commons had spurned their entreaties to maintain independence with
scorn, a