London to John O Groat's. 13 



London warehouse ; and all this to make himself famous 

 as a great light in the agricultural world, which light, 

 after all, was a mere will-o'-the-wisp sort of affair, lead- 

 ing its dupes into the veriest bog of bankruptcy. In 

 common with all those bold, self-reliant spirits that have 

 ventured to break away from the antecedents of public 

 opinion and custom, he has been the subject of many 

 ungenerous inuendoes and criticisms. All kinds of am- 

 bitions and motives have been ascribed to him. Many 

 a burly, red-faced farmer, who boasts of an unbroken 

 agricultural lineage reaching back into the reign of 

 Good Queen Bess, will tell you over his beer that the 

 Alderman's doings are all gammon; that they are all 

 to advertise his cutlery business in Leadenhall Street, 

 Barnum fashion; to inveigle down to Tiptree Hall 

 noblemen, foreign ambassadors, and great people of 

 different countries, and bribe " an honorable mention " 

 out of them with champagne treats and oyster suppers. 

 Indeed, my Quaker host largely participated in this 

 opinion, and took no pains to conceal it when speaking 

 of his enterprising neighbor. 



From what I had read and heard of the Tiptree Hall 

 estate, I expected to see a grand, old baronial mansion, 

 surrounded with elegant and costly buildings for housing 

 horses, cattle, sheep, and other live stock, all erected on 

 a scale which no bond fide farmer could adopt or approxi- 



