CHAPTER XL 



RECOVERED VIGOUR (1907) 



(Age 78) 



The London Municipal Society, in 1907, was 

 fighting the London County Council Election 

 on the side of economy, and Lord Avebury, 

 with one or two others, was asked to speak his 

 views into a gramophone. The speeches were 

 then fired off, night after night, in different parts 

 of London, until the day of the election. It was 

 a novel mode of appeal, which attracted the 

 electors and, it was claimed, had much effect 

 on the elections. He also read part of a chapter 

 from one of his books into the gramophone at 

 the same time, and the record was deposited at 

 the British Museum, with other records of a 

 like kind. 



Early in the year they were at Kingsgate, 

 and he relates that " an angler-fish, about 3 J 

 feet long, was thrown up on the beach. The 

 coastguardsman informed one of the footmen 

 about it, the footman told the nurserymaid, the 

 nurserymaid told Maurice (the youngest of his 

 children), and by that time it had become a 

 whale ! " 



238 



