FIFTY YEARS OF A SHOWMAN'S LIFE 



to be now extinct, whereas young trees are in 

 every nurseryman's catalogue." 



I may add that I have not been able to refer 

 to the communication mentioned in Mr. Bartley's 

 letter, made by Mr. Travers to the Bath and 

 West Society, as for a reason, to which I shall 

 presently refer, the Society's records were very 

 imperfectly kept at that time. 



The deterioration of the potato, referred to in 

 the letter, has been written about of late as 

 though it were a recent discovery, whereas the 

 letter shows that it was a subject of remark long 

 ago. 



" This fond attachment to the well-known place 

 Whence first we started into life's long race." 



It is curious to find, as is not infrequently 

 the case, that, after a lapse of many years, relics 

 of an almost forgotten past have a knack of finding 

 their way back to their native soil or its equivalent, 

 as though they were not altogether insensible 

 to the homing instinct. One wonders in what 

 company and in what places my predecessor's 

 letter had been since it was first dispatched from 

 Hetling House under conditions of postage so 

 different to those at present prevailing ? How 

 did it secure such a prolongation of existence as 

 to live to be knocked down in a London auction 

 room more than a century after its birth, and how 

 many chances were there against its ever finding a 

 haven of rest so congenial as the sheltering roof 

 of the old Society, to whom it primarily owed 

 its being ? But, if we know so little of the 

 happenings to the old letter, the Society's minute 



258 



