An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY where I found a MS., afterwards printed at my suggestion by Miss Toulmin Smith, a great coadjutor of mine and one of the Record Office workers. On the 14th February, 1887,I privately printed "Rubbish and Nonsense." On the 20th September I met H. Lee Warner in the train, and found him a keen naturalist and entomologist, and a very pleasant man. The Town Close case came on in March, and as Sir F. Jeune threw up his brief for some reason or another at the last moment, we fell back on Warmington, Q.C., who displayed a marvellous power of mastering a mass of complicated details in about two days, and won for us handsomely on the 23rd l\Iarch. On the 26th May I read a paper at the Albert Hall on the Persecutions of the Jews in England, which had long interested me, as Norwich had been the scene of one of the earliest persecutions, and it was printed as a volume by the Anglo-Jewish Society. My second and third sons went to Beccles Grammar School on 4th May, where they were very comfortable and learned to swim excellently, but little else. On 14th May, J.B. Rye won the school mile again at St. Paul's, the under 16 quarter, and got second in the roo, while A. L. Rye won both the junior jumps, so they came away with five prizes. This summer I filled up time with a hard fight with the Wa:cdsworth and Putney Gas Co., which culminated in several police court summonses, and in which I was able to demonstrate that a meter could lie and which earned me complimentary reference in the London papers, which referred to me as the "Dobbs of the Gas World,'' as being the first man who had successfully tackled a gas company. I received another and what I thought a vindictive summons the next quarter, but having elicited the fact that the Government Inspector who certified the correctness of the meter bad never even seen it, but had left it to his deputy, I scored again, the magistrate (who was heartily sick of the whole case) dismissing the summons with heavy costs. After this they let me alone. They bad summoned me the first time, for, as nearly as I could remember £17 for one Summer quarter's gas, and stood firm on their charming and convenient maxim, that a met er could not lie. On 1st July I saw Henley Regatta with my wife ±or the first and only time. On the 26th