ed very heartily. He said the proposal that such a
society should be formed was regarded as the day dream of a sanguine
mind, but it was something to reflect upon, the immense amount of good
that had been done in the course of years. More practical help he could
not imagine rendering to the fellows in the Service. He trusted that the
work of that day's Conference might re-echo and redound to the credit of
the Bristol meeting, and he desired, in thanking their Bristol friends,
to couple with them the names of Mr. E.C. Taylor and the Reception
Committee.

In proposing "The City and County of Bristol," Mr. Edward Bennett said
that he had attended a great number of these banquets, and had had on
several occasions to propose the toast of the particular town which was
for the moment entertaining the Society. For this reason he was,
perhaps, looked upon as a special pleader, and when he was praising a
provincial city his tongue was thought to be in his cheek, and London
was written on his heart. When Stella was told that Dean Swift had
composed a poem, not in honour of her, but of Vanessa, she replied, with
exquisite feminine amenity, that it was well known that the Dean could
be eloquent over a broomstick. If he that night extolled Bristol above
her other rivals, it would be said of him that he was a verbose
individual, who had called in past years Leeds a beautiful and inspiring
city, Liverpool a rising seaport, and Glasgow a town where urbanity and
sweet reasonableness prevailed. It might be remembered of him that he
had praised the Birmingham man for his childlike humility, and the
Edinburgh man for his excessive modesty. It was his first visit to
Bristol, and it was presumption on his part to speak on the subject at
all. Silence was the better part when a man was situated as he was.
There were some exquisite lines he learnt as a child which conveyed a
deep moral lesson to all day trippers:--

There was a young lady of Sweden
She went by the slow train to Weedon,
When she arrived at Weedon Station she made no observation,
But returned by the slow train to Sweden.

That was what he ought to have done. His heart went out to that young
lady, and he often had pondered whether it was disgust, astonishment, or
admiration which had inspired her silence. There was a special reason
why Civil Servants should be drawn to Bristol. Doubtless even the
Bristol Chamber of Commerce was acquainted with the process known a