FIFTY YEARS OF A SHOWMAN'S LIFE 



engendered by such inter-communications was 

 afforded a few years ago. 



The American Philosophical Society, one of 

 the most notable of scientific associations, and 

 which was founded a few years before the Bath 

 and West Society, determined to celebrate, with 

 much rejoicing and ceremony, extending over 

 several days, the two-hundredth anniversary of 

 the birth of its founder, the illustrious Benjamin 

 Franklin. In token of a long and pleasant re- 

 lationship, the American Society invited the Bath 

 Society to join in its festivities by sending a 

 representative to Philadelphia, where, at head- 

 quarters, the celebration was to be held. Some 

 of our Council were kindly desirous for me to take 

 advantage of the invitation, but apart from 

 other reasons the anniversary, being in April, 

 was much too near the date of our annual show 

 to permit of my leaving with any sense of safety. 

 But I cast about for something which might help 

 to mitigate any feeling that the non-acceptance 

 of so courteous an invitation was due to lack of 

 appreciation of, or interest in, the subject of the 

 celebration, and, happily, I lighted upon what 

 I thought might serve. From my youth up I 

 have been afflicted, or blessed according to the 

 point of view with which folk regard it with 

 an incurable craze for collecting the epistolary 

 communications of eminent persons, and my 

 portfolios are constantly yielding me something 

 from their ancient stores, calculated to link up 

 the present with the past. This sort of mania 

 brings home to one that, after all, there is a 

 good deal of continuity in this life, and that you 



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