Before returning to the House to reply at the end
of the debate on the London Government Bill, Mr. Balfour presided yesterday week at a dinner given by the National Cyclists' Union to celebrate its "coming of age," and delivered a short but interesting speech on what he described as one of the most civilising inventions of the time. The bicycle, Mr. Balfour contended, had saved the dwellers in towns from the danger of being deprived of personal knowledge and experience of the joys of country life, and he disclaimed exaggeration in asserting that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, at a time when London was but a small fraction of what it now is, had fewer opportunities of getting rapidly out of it than we now enjoy, chiefly owing to the bicycle. In illustration of his statement that the bicycle was enjoyed by all ages. Mr. Balfour mentioned that six successive Vice-Chancellors of the University of Cambridge had been, without exception, cyclists. The dinner, it may be added, afforded welcome proof of the amenities of our Parliamentary system, as well as of the solidarity of the cycling community, Mr. Balfour being supported by Mr. Herbert Gladstone, to whom he referred as "a very old friend of mine," and who had moved the rejection of the Bill mentioned above.
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