I am glad to have seen something of country life before the old system of County Management had been abolished by the introduction of County Councils, which have swallowed all the duties of Quarter Sessions save only their judicial functions. In Gloucestershire, under the chairmanship of Sir John Dorington, one of the ablest and most conscientious of administrators, whose worth was afterwards acknowledged by his election to the chair of the County Council, the magistrates certainly did their work admirably. Having had a pretty long experience of the civil service, working under the stern and sometimes rather narrow rule of the Treasury, I was perhaps a more or less competent critic, and I must say that I was full of admiration for the way in which the business of the county was carried on. The County Council has larger duties to perform, and very well its work is done; it is, moreover, a tribute to the efficiency of the squirearchy that it is so largely represented in a body which is none the worse for a leaven of the farmer and labour classes. The quarterly meetings of the magistrates, which lasted for one, two or three days, were useful and pleasant gatherings. We put up at the Judges’ lodgings at Gloucester, and had the opportunity of discussing business and comparing notes with men from distant parts of the county. The loss of those meetings was an incident of the change which I greatly regretted. Quarter Sessions were of the nature of a very pleasant club at which, in addition to the transaction of business, there was all the charm of a delightful social gathering. The motor car, which has made such a revolution in country life, has also borne a hand in the abolition of our agreeable symposia. There are few places so remote that it is necessary to sleep out when you can travel to your County Hall at the rate of twenty miles an hour. The men who habitually attended Quarter Sessions were all of them able men, cultivated and well read. One dear man, now long since departed, was a little too well read. He was very proud of his scholarship and especially of his knowledge of Cicero—the one classic bore whom, above all others, I disliked. One night I had gone to bed with a bad headache, and unable to dine. My friend came to my room after dinner, full of sympathy. He sat down on my bed and quoted Cicero for an hour or more. There was no escape. I lay there and listened in silent patience to excerpts from the treatise “De Amicitia,” wishing that it had never been written, or at any rate that Amicitia would prompt my persecutor to leave me to bear the throbbings of my head in peaceful solitude. The years of my life have been years of transition in many countries. It would have been strange if my own country had been exempt; but I am old-fashioned enough and conservative enough to regret many changes, and many losses; not the least of these regrets is given to the old Quarter Sessions.