17 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
By R. A. ALLISON, Esa., M.P. 
(Delivered at Longtown, 1888.) 
You have now I believe reached the most northern limit of the 
realm over which your Association for the Advancement of Liter- 
ature and Science holds sway. Longtown is, I take it, the Ultima 
Thule of your dominions, and I can assure you I have great 
pleasure in being the mouthpiece through which the words of 
welcome that are usual on these occasions are addressed to you by 
your most northern, but not, I am sure I may say, your least loyal 
and devoted subjects. No doubt, in comparison with the places 
you have already visited at these annual meetings—places such as 
Carlisle, Cockermouth, Keswick, and many others—Longtown 
may seem to be lacking in importance and interest, just as I fear 
you have found it somewhat difficult and inconvenient to reach. 
Still, although those larger places may open to you fields of obser- 
vation with which here we cannot vie, and supply you with audiences 
whose numbers we cannot reach, we may claim that this little town 
standing, as it does, on the very threshold of the interesting Border 
district, has its claims on your appreciative notice, and that the 
neighbourhood of which it is the centre, is, from many points of 
view, one of not the least interesting and characteristic of those 
with which you have to deal. 
Let me say too, in passing, that one of its claims to your favour- 
able consideration is that it was one of the earliest branches to join 
your central Association, I think it did so in the third year of 
