AUGUST 305 



company which they are forming will be as successful in the future 

 as their firm seems to have been individually in the past. As I 

 gather from the prospectus that the whole of the ordinary 

 shares are to remain in their hands, and that they will continue 

 to manage the venture, this does not seem an extravagant 

 expectation. 



The second document is a circular from that splendid society, 

 the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution, addressed to me as 

 churchwarden of this parish, and asking that the whole or part 

 of the Harvest Thanksgiving collection should be devoted to the 

 Society, which since the year 1860 has already distributed over 

 36o,ooo/. among distressed agriculturists and their children. 

 Appended to the circular are a few examples of agricultural mis- 

 fortune. They are melancholy reading, but, like most people 

 connected with the land, I could supplement them from my own 

 experience by instances equally sad. The distresses of those who 

 in this country try to win a living out of the products of the earth 

 are a very favourite subject of jest among celebrated after-dinner 

 speakers, and rarely fail to provoke a ready laugh from an 

 audience which has just dined upon American flour, River Plate 

 beef, Australian mutton, Russian fowls, French milk, Dutch 

 margarine, and German beet-sugar. Heaven knows, however, 

 that they are genuine enough, as the Agricultural Benevolent 

 Institution will have no difficulty in proving to any who trouble to 

 inquire into the matter. 



August*}. I forgot to state in my diary yesterday that the 

 foal was supposed to have expired of chill resulting from exposure 

 to wet and cold on the low railway marsh. This theory struck 

 me as odd ; first, because I was told that the little creature had 

 been seen playing round its dam not four hours before the end, 

 and secondly, because it showed no outward and visible sign of 

 having come to its death from any such cause. For these reasons 

 I directed that a post-mortem examination should be made. This 

 was done by the veterinary this morning, with the result that the 



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