TRINIDAD : THEN AND NOW. 



Ill 



trust that any little defects which people of equal or 

 greater knowledge may discover will be overlooked 

 by them. 



I must state at the outset that I have had the 

 good fortune always to have possessed a good 

 memory. It has continued to the present day, and 

 has served, to a remarkable extent, in helping 

 me in my professional capacity in the various grades 

 in the police force through which I have passed. As 

 an illustration of this faculty I will give two illustra- 

 tions as a selection from many : one when I was a 

 school-boy and the other many years after my arrival 

 in this colony. 



The Trench family, or at least a branch of it, has 

 been so long settled in Ireland as to be recognised as 

 Irish. The celebrated Archbishop Trench, a member 

 of that old and ancient family, was, at the time I write 

 of, theological professor at King's College, London ; 

 he became, some years afterwards, Archbishop of 

 Dublin. In the early fifties of the last century he was 

 on a visit to his relatives near the village of Clane in 

 Kildare. One Sunday, sometime in the late summer 

 or early autumn, he preached in the parish church 

 of Clane, at which my school attended. He was an 

 eloquent preacher — or so he appeared to me — but he 

 had a peculiar intonation in reading. The first lesson 

 of the day was taken from the first chapter of Isaiah, 

 and his text was also selected from the same chapter, 

 as follows : " The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass 

 his master's crib : but Israel doth not know, my 

 people doth not consider." In reading the lesson 



