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"Talking of Exhibitions, World’s Fairs, and what not,” said the old gentleman, ‘I would not go round the corner to sea a dozen of them nowadays. The only exhibition that ever made, or ever will make, any impression upon my imagination was the first of the series, the parent of them all, and now a thing of old times—the Great Exhibition of 1881, in Hyde Park, London. None of the younger generation can realize the sense of novelty it produced in us who were then in our prime. A noun substantive went so far as to become an adjective in honor of the occassion. It was ‘exhibition’ hat, ‘exhibition’ razor-strop, ‘exhibition’ watch ; nay, even ‘exhibition’ weather, ‘ exhibition ’ spirits, sweethearts, babies, wives—for the time.

“For South Wessex, the year formed in many ways an extraordinary chronological frontier or transit-line, at which there occurred what one might call a precipice in Time, As in a geological ‘fault,’ we had presented to us a sudden briaging of ancient and modern into absolute contact, such as probably in no other single year since the Conqnest was ever witnessed in this part of the country.”

These observations led us onward to talk of the different personages, gentle and simple, who lived and moved within our narrow and peaceful horizon at that