clxx 
Monthly Council , November 7, 1894. 
County Council) said he had the 
honour to be there that day to urge 
the claims of the district, which were 
almost purely agricultural. There 
was a great deal of the shoemaking 
industry, and iron-stone quarrying 
was carried on, but with these two 
exceptions their district was purely 
agricultural. Considering the way in 
which agriculture in their county had 
suffered since 1879, he thought he 
could say that they deserved the 
encouragement of a visit from the 
Society. He did not wish to detract 
from the merits of the claims of their 
neighbours from Leicester, but there 
were five points in favour of North- 
ampton as against their neighbours 
at Leicester : First, they compared 
favourably with the county of Leices- 
ter in respect of Governors and Mem- 
bers of the Society. Although he 
believed their population was not so 
large as that of Leicestershire, they had 
181 Governors and Members, as against 
150 in Leicestershire. Secondly, the 
Society had met at Leicester in 1808 
— only twenty-eight years before 1896 
— whereas Northampton had not been 
favoured since 1847. Thirdly, they 
were nearer London, with a train 
service certainly not inferior to any 
in the world, being on the main line 
to London by the London and North- 
Western Railway — a journey of one 
and a-half hours, as compared with 
two hours to Leicester. Fourthly, 
there were remarks that the water 
supply of Leicester failed, or was 
not adequate ; and he would point 
out that with the large number of 
animals that came to their enormous 
Show they would need a water supply 
sufficient and constant. Lastly, their 
introducer that day bore one of the 
names which was much honoured in 
their Society. The third Lord Spen- 
cer was one of the founders of the 
Royal Agricultural Society, and if 
they admitted the celebrity which 
the Knightley blood represented 
throughout the world, he felt sure 
they would admit that Northampton, 
on that account alone, bore a claim 
to their consideration. 
The deputation then retired. 
Selection of Leicester. 
Mr. Hornsby, in moving “ That 
Leicester be selected as the place of 
the Country Meeting for the year 
1 896,” said he did not wish to say a 
single word against Northampton. 
At the same time, being the only 
Member of the Council for Leicester- 
shire, he felt it a pleasurable duty to 
ask the Council to hold the Society’s 
Country Meeting at Leicester in the 
year 1896. But when he asked them 
to do that he only felt that he was 
doing his duty as a member of the 
Council, as he thought that Leicester 
would be financially a better place 
for the Society to visit than North- 
ampton. The Leicestershire people, 
as well as the borough, were most 
anxious that their Society should 
come to Leicester, and he had great 
pleasure in proposing that the Show 
of 1896 should be held there. 
Mr. Henry Smith having seconded 
the motion, 
Mr. Albert Pell moved an 
amendment in favour of the selec- 
tion of Northampton. He would 
point out to the Council that the 
arguments, so far as he had caught 
them, upon which Leicester depended 
were those of population and gate 
money. As long as he (Mr. Pell) had 
had the honour of being on that 
Council, he had always resisted that 
view of the case, as one not worthy of 
the Society. They had done very 
well in going to purely rural towns, 
so far as money went, and they had 
done rather badly when they had 
approached some of the great towns 
from which they had expected to 
derive large revenue. He did not 
want to make opprobrious remarks 
with regard to Leicester — he had 
had a long and honourable connec- 
tion with that county ; but he could 
not forget some of the defects of that 
site, from which they had already 
suffered in connection with the water 
supply at the Leicester Meeting of 
1868. They knew that, after a suc- 
cession of dry seasons Leicester was 
in difficulties with regard to water. 
He would like to mention one or two 
reasons in favour of the Society going 
to such a town as Northampton. It 
was most handsomely provided with 
