When I came into the room I expected to find one half of the company on crutches and the other half in splints. I am not at all certain that I am the proper man to be President of this club, because I think that the President of an athletic club should measure at least 48 inches round the chest, and ought to have biceps of 18 inches, and scale at least 14 stone 7 lbs. I am afraid all the dumb bells in the world would not get me up to that. I am what might be called an old fossil, though I cannot boast of the garrulity of old age, and therefore I will not tell you that when I played football I was always kicking the ball out of the ground into the river; or that when I played cricket I always drove the ball into the river. Those are facts well known in Newport. _First Annual Dinner of the Newport Athletic Club, April 19th, 1890._ HUNTING. I am always delighted to see any member of the Corporation at the meet of my hounds. If they came out horrid Radicals they would go back half Tories. [Illustration: "_I am afraid all the dumb bells in the world would not get me up to that._"] "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin," and there is nothing like a meet in the open country for setting things right between friends and neighbours. _Mayor's Banquet, Newport, January 15th, 1884._ A clever satirist has said that nature made the horse and hounds and threw in the fox as a connecting link. In my opinion, fox-hounds and hunting are the connecting links between the landlord and the tenant farmer. [Illustration: "_'Oh the devil!' I exclaimed. 'No, not the devil,' said the farmer, 'but the fox.'_"] I have made many pleasant acquaintances lately in my hunting expeditions, and I hope we shall always remain on the most amicable terms. But some have astonished me with their argument. Said one, "Beg pardon, Major, I have lost such a sight of poultry." "Dear me," I said. "Yes, we lost forty ducks the other night." "Oh, the devil!" I exclaimed. "No, not the devil," said the farmer, "but the fox." I asked the farmer how he managed to count so many. "Well," was the reply, "I had four ducks sitting on ten eggs each; and that made forty." Well, the Chamber of Agriculture has not yet settled the knotty point of "compensation for unexhausted improvements." However, the argument ended in our parting very good friends, as, said the farmer, "I and my landlord have been friends hitherto, and as I hope we shall continue to be." TWO UNPROFITABLE HONOURS. I have the honour to hold two offices which, if I did not enjoy the friendship of the farmers, would be very thorny ones. One of them is that of being a member of Parliament for an agricultural county. You will agree with me that, in such a position, if I were not on good terms with the farmer, I would often be on a bed of thorns.