f an interchange of visits between the
Leicester and Nottingham Mechanics' Institutes. I was an enthusiastic
temperance man, and the secretary of a district association, which
embraced parts of the two counties of Leicester and Northampton. A great
meeting was to be held at Leicester, over which Lawrence Heyworth, Esq.,
of Liverpool--a great railway as well as temperance man--was advertised
to preside. From my residence at Market Harborough I walked to Leicester
(fifteen miles) to attend that meeting. About midway between Harborough
and Leicester--my mind's eye has often reverted to the spot--a thought
flashed through my brain, what a glorious thing it would be if the
newly-developed powers of railways and locomotion could be made
subservient to the promotion of temperance. That thought grew upon me as
I travelled over the last six or eight miles. I carried it up to the
platform, and, strong in the confidence of the sympathy of the chairman,
I broached the idea of engaging a special train to carry the friends of
temperance from Leicester to Loughborough and back to attend a quarterly
delegate meeting appointed to be held there in two or three weeks
following. The chairman approved, the meeting roared with excitement,
and early next day I proposed my grand scheme to John Fox Bell, the
resident secretary of the Midland Counties Railway Company. Mr. Paget,
of Loughborough, opened his park for a gala, and on the day appointed
about five hundred passengers filled some twenty or twenty-five open
carriages--they were called 'tubs' in those days--and the party rode the
enormous distance of eleven miles and back for a shilling, children
half-price. We carried music with us, and music met us at the
Loughborough station. The people crowded the streets, filled windows,
covered the house-tops, and cheered us all along the line, with the
heartiest welcome. All went off in the best style and in perfect safety
we returned to Leicester; and thus was struck the keynote of my
excursions, and the social idea grew upon me."

THE DEODAND.

It was a principle of English common law derived from the feudal period,
that anything through the instrumentality of which death occurred was
forfeited to the crown as a deodand; accordingly down to the year 1840
and even later, we find, in all cases where persons were killed, records
of deodands levied by the coroners' juries upon locomotives. These
appear to have been arbitrarily im