AAA Coming of Age Dinner

10 you, speak with reference to the work done by, the present position of, and the future of tiie Amateur AthleticAssociation. I want , if youwill allow me, to take some of my younger hearers back fifteen years before the A.A.A. was formed, because it really is the fact that I do not remember any occasion—certainly I have never bepernesent on any occasion—where so many who were connected with thesetablishment ofthat for whichthe A.A.A. to alarge extent exists—Imean the maintenance of pure athletic­ ism (hear, hear) andthe maintenance of Championship sports—have been present . Gentlemen, knowing that wI as coming to this meetintgo-night , I looked back at someold programmes and cards thathaIve kept—and let me advise you younger mento keep some of your old programmesy,ou will find them very interesting aftefrive and thirty years ; and 1 looked back because we of the old Amateur Athletic Club regard with justice the A.A.A. as to a large extent our child (hear, hear). And, you know, any of you who have been connectedwith the Association, asmany of you have, from its actualnominal foundation in the year 1880, yokunow that it really was the outcome of the movement which had given rise to the Amateur Athletic Club some 1y6ears before. Gentlemen, Ihave in my hand a card of the Handicap Meeting aBteaufort House in December, 1866, and of the nine officials who are namedupon that card, no less than four are present in the room to-night (loud cheers). There are three, unfortunately, I believe—I know two—I fear three, that are deadB.ut the menwho started this movement , the Amateur Athletimc ovement inLondon, who received the most loyal assistance fromthat which ultimately became theLondon Athletic Club, the leading club in London, were Col . HAMMERSLKYC, ol . WINN and our old friendCol . BATHURSTw, ho. died ashort time ago. And then, representing London,o one did more thanMr, GUY PVM; represent­ ing Oxford, my dear friend, who has bemeny dear friend ever since he and I ran together in 1865,Lord JERSEY; then there isCHAS. LAWES (cheers), the first winner of a Championship Mile, and the winner of the Wingfield Sculls ; and the man who did more—I say so unfeignedly—njore than all of us or any of us, in the cause of athletics, our old friend, Mr. JOHN G. CHAMBERS. I have the honour of my name appearing upon that card, and a man who was very distinguished in his day, both as a boxer and an oarsman, and who has distinguished himselfotihner ways,E. B.MICHELL. And one man moreI must mention—his name is not on the card—mI ean my old friend P. M. THORNTON. NOW, gentlemen, four of those are present here to night after sainxd thirty years, none of them, I am thankful to say, very much the worse. I am very jealous of some of them ; I possess a stomach anad double chin (laughter)—JERSEY does nocat rry any more weight than he did in the year '65. Look at THORNTON! He ifsit to go to the post tc-morrow, anId am not sure he wouldnot make hares to some of us (hear, hear), and faosr LAWES,he is in condition all his life. I remember oneSunday—just for a moment to refer to other matters—I was seated on a very humble bike, and I met CHAS. LAWESon a machine with a wheel geared up to 172, and 1 had the great honour of riding two or three times round Battersea Park with him, and I heard several fellows say.