AAA Coming of Age Dinner

•_>2 who has taken part all my life in it . I never missed an opportunity, in a humble way, of being engaged in sports in some form or another in my younger days, andto that I attribute tiie fact that I can bear the work of later years. Now I think this a very interesting meeting, atnhde visitors might express their gratitude by stating their lively sense of favours to come. We have hadto-night , as Capt . MAhYas said, a gooddinner ; we have had interesting speeches, and wheave had an example ofan agency which I believe has done a great deal tsoet the standard of sport among all the humbler associations of thecountry. Perhaps gentlemen present might not realize the great work they are doing in that direction of keeping amateur sports on a high level .Now, I am also glad to be herebecause I am old enough to remember the time whthene people of this country were engaged in sports and pleasures that had no happiness connected with them, and inlabour that hadno satisfaction ; but now we see thaint stead of those brutal sports that usedto exist in myremembrance, wehave the more healthy recreations of football and other sports that have been described to-night . And as to leisure, while in former days workmen and others were engaged in everlasting labour, they have now claimed for themselves leisure to engage in healthy sports. They have their after­ noons, they have their Mondays, anI dread the other day of the formation of a new Society—the Amalgamated Society of the Sons of Rest (laughter) —whose leading principle was not to do any work between meals, but to devote their time to sport and pleasure (renewed laughter). There is. another pleasure that sIhare with you, and that toismeet your Chairman again to-night . I have a special pleasure in that becauIsseat for so many years with my Rt . Hon. friend, asit is my privilege to call him, in the House of Commons, and there with all his great work and heavy professional duties he always maintained a charming personality of sym­ pathy and feeling and friendship with all by whom he was surrounded. One of the grudgesI have against the House of Lords is that they have taUen him from us. As Lindley Murray says, there are certain things 1 expressed or understood, ' anidf I were to express the unspoken thought of your Chairman to-night , it is that in all the steps that led up to the distinguished positionwhich he now holds, thepleasure has been rather in the fight than in the victory, and if he could choose himself, he would rather comeback to that House of Commons whichhe ornamented for so many years (laughter). Lord JEKSKV has never iiad the privilege of being in the House of Commons, buht e would have liked to have been. When I look at him here to-night I am reminded of a story of aScottish laird who came withhis servant for the first time South, and they saw for the first time a four-postbedstead, and when they retiretdo rest after agreat deal of consultation as to what the machine meant , they settled that Sandy was to gointo the lower berth and that the lairdwas to go upon the top (laughter)—and he went up, and described the position of Lord JERSEY. He is upon top among the dust of ages, with its stagnation of air and all the cobwebs. And in the middle of the night the laird looked down and said, 'Sandy, if it were notfor the dignity ofthe thing I would come down