BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 5 



fair Street, now occupied by the National and Provincial 

 Bank), were called upon to cater for many hunting guests. 

 To the former hostelry, Thomas Egerton, Earl of Wilton, 

 born 1799, used to come down from his seat, Heaton House, 

 in Lancashire, and, as some indication of the growth of 

 Leicester since the early part of last century, I may add 

 that his Lordship frequently shot partridges in the fields, 

 then visible from his windows at the Bell, — fields long 

 since covered with bricks and mortar, now extending 

 to and beyond the Great Northern Railway Station at 

 Humberstone, a town in itself, and curiously enough partly 

 erected, I believe, upon land which Mr. Tailby inherited 

 from his father. 



In this connection, passing mention may be made of the 

 remarkable changes in the conditions of life, locomotion 

 especially, which have taken place all within the one life of 

 which I write. Born antecedent to the passing of the 

 Reform Bill, during those troublous days of the corn riots, 

 when, notwithstanding a military escort, the farmers' 

 waggons, laden with corn, as they passed along the turnpike 

 road which runs by the side of Skeffington Hall, were often 

 attacked, and a bag of their precious contents frequently 

 abstracted by the semi-starving inhabitants of the villages 

 through which they passed. With the advent of steam came 

 the gradual transition from the old stage coach to the 

 " corridor de luxe " ; the introduction of petrol brought the 

 " horseless carriage " — the universal motor car — doing away 

 with the old-fashioned " cob to the meet " ; and greatest 

 wonder of all, man's command of the air, "looping the loop " 

 in the ether ; giving us a new " highway " where no tracks 

 are needed, or left behind ! The submarine, torpedo and 

 super-Dreadnought represent equivalent inventions on and 

 under the water ! And finally the discovery of radium and 

 of the X rays presents all sorts of possibilities, whilst the 

 telegraph, telephone, and gramophone have long claimed a 

 great place in our every-day life. It may truly be said 

 that at no time in the world's history has the period 

 embraced by the life of one individual been of so epoch- 



