QUIPS AT THE SERVANTS' BALL.

I have arrived at the age when to clasp the waist of one of the opposite sex for three hours is not considered the height of human happiness. I remember, however, with pleasure, a time in my younger days when I thought it was so, and perhaps some of those who can indulge in a valse without feeling giddy, or a polka without being "blown," think so now.

Servants' Ball, January 14th, 1889.

"I remember, however, with pleasure, a time in my younger days."

I am happy to be able truly and honestly to say that I have not a word of difference with any servant of my establishment. Each year as it rolls onward finds me stiffer in the joints, shorter in the breath, and less able than formerly to perform the double shuffle, but there are others coming on—the younger members of the family—who will be able to kick up their heels as lightly as once I was able to do. As each year rolls round, too, there are always saddening memories, but on an occasion of this sort I will make no allusions to them, ... I hope you will stick to old fashions and old ways. You may be told of new-fangled ways, and be advised to get rid of the old, but I think it will be well if you do not pay too much attention to those advisers. England is like old Tredegar House, and you will find that the customs now prevailing have been in vogue for over 500 years. You will probably be told that the best way to make people happy is to make the poor rich and the rich poor; but, in truth, the richer people are, the better able they are to help the poor.

Servants' Ball, January 7th, 1910.

Many of you waited last night for the old year to go out and the new year to come in. I did for one. I listened at the window and I heard bells ringing, and noises which I can only describe as hideous. There is an invention in this part of the world, which I believe comes from America (where they have a great many disagreeable things) called a "hooter." When I listened last night it seemed to me that it was deliberately hooting out the old year which to so many of us had painful recollections; and it occurred to me that it was a most appropriate thing to do. It was the wettest spring, the coldest summer, the windiest autumn that I have ever known.

Servants' Ball, January 1st, 1892.

I can imagine the Bassaleg Parish Council rejoicing in a license for dancing in the hall, and the teetotallers passing a resolution in favour of total abstinence, in which case we should have to obtain our refreshments from the village pump.

Servants' Ball, January 9th, 1894.

Railways are springing up all round, and, reading the signs of the times as I do, I think there will be increased prosperity. If all the railways now proposed are constructed, we shall be able to paraphrase the poet's lines:—

"I shall be able to convert Tredegar House into the 'Railway Hotel.'"

I shall be able to convert Tredegar House into the "Railway Hotel," join the Licensed Victuallers' Association, and do a good trade—if I can get a license. We have progressed a good deal lately, even in dancing. I can remember the minuet being the fashion. It was danced with a great deal of bowing and scraping. Then the waltz, quadrille, and lancers came. We next had a kitchen lancers, and this year we have a barn dance. Next year, perhaps, we shall have a pigstye polka, which will no doubt be very amusing.

Servants' Ball, January 8th, 1896.

There have been many changes in the manners and customs of the country during late years. I am very fond of old customs, and I hope this old-fashioned Servants' Ball will be kept up by those who come after me. I am sure there is no gentleman in England who is blessed with a better lot of servants than I have. If sometimes by my manner I do not appear pleased, I hope you will make allowance for the business anxieties constantly hanging over my head, and which do not always conduce to a pleasant expression. I will relate an incident. An individual who apparently takes a great deal of interest in me wrote to me not so long ago and asked, "Why did you look so proud and haughty when you met me the other day?" I have no recollection of having been proud and haughty, but I have a very distinct recollection of a very tight boot and a very bad corn.

Servants' Ball, January 8th, 1896.

"When your toe begins to take a fantastic shape it is pretty nearly time to give up dancing."

I always sympathise with you in your sorrows and try to join you in your pleasures. In this life, unfortunately, for a good many, there are more sorrows than pleasures, but I think it is the duty of all who have it in their power to try to make those around them have, if possible, more pleasures in their lives than sorrows. I congratulate myself that I have still a kick left in me. You know that Milton, the poet, has said in two lines:

but when your toe begins to take a fantastic shape it is pretty nearly time to give up dancing. As my toes are beginning to take that shape, I am afraid I shall not have a kick left much longer. I have always spoken a few words to you on these occasions—sometimes of sentiment, sometimes of politics, and sometimes of fun. I usually prefer fun, because there is generally enough of the other phases around us. I will therefore content myself with giving the establishment a little bit of advice, or rather a hint. I have found that what I say on these occasions has somehow or other found its way into the papers. I do not know exactly how that is. However, I think it will be more impressive in print, because if you forget what I say before the end of the evening, you will be able to read it in the Press next day. My hint is about fires. There are large fireplaces in Tredegar House, which is an old one, full of old oak which is liable to catch fire. During the last few weeks some fine old country houses have been destroyed by fire. I do not think this has occurred through carelessness. I know my servants are not careless. What I want you to understand is the difference between a fire and a furnace. Old Welsh families—and my family is really an old Welsh family—all believe that they have very long pedigrees. There are in the strong room at Tredegar House a great many old records—some of which I have read out of curiosity. Many of them, no doubt, are mythical, and some are accurate, but in all my study of them I have not been able to discover that I bear any relationship to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. I therefore fail to see why the household staff should pile up furnaces, especially now that I assure them I am not quite impervious to fire. I always like to entertain you a little on these occasions. I will therefore just sing to you a few lines, and ask Young Charley (the huntsman) to come in at the end. I notice that Old Charley (the former huntsman) is also present, and he, perhaps, will join in as well. His Lordship then sang the following verses to the tune of "Ben Bolt":—

Servants' Ball, January 11th, 1898.

Times have changed, and fashions change very quickly—so much so that I was half afraid you would have petitioned me to allow you to have a ping-pong tournament. I am glad to see that you still prefer to stick to the old custom of a ball. Of all entertainments a ball is, in my opinion, the most harmless. It will always follow that there will be some who perhaps on the morrow will think that their affections had not been quite under control, and that they had spoken words of endearment that perhaps they regretted, and the lady might not. And perhaps there will always be those whose control over their thirst at a ball is not quite so strong as that of others.

Servants' Ball, January 3rd, 1902.

"Perhaps there will always be those whose control over their thirst at a ball is not quite so strong as that of others."

I have no doubt that much of what Mr. Perrott has just told you about the revels that have taken place in the hall during the last 200 or 300 years is perfectly true. There may perhaps have been more fun in the old days—that is a matter of history. I very much doubt it myself, and I have a sort of idea, and I hope and trust that at the Servants' Ball which still takes place here annually—unless there is some misfortune to prevent it—there is as much fun and revelry as has ever before taken place in this hall. The old lamp hung over your heads belonged to a former Lord Mayor of London—Sir Edward Clark—from whom I inherited some property and plate. That lamp probably hung in the Mansion House in London some two or three hundred years ago, and I have no doubt it has seen some peculiar scenes.

Servants' Ball, January 8th, 1903.

I also have my little anxieties. I have been hoping and praying that the enemy will not come up the Bristol Channel and land somewhere near here before I have got my Territorial Army into position. At the present moment the Territorial Army in Monmouthshire consists exactly of 17 men, all of whom are officers. So that unless the enemy give us due notice that they are coming here, I am afraid that we shall have to depend principally upon the Tredegar House establishment. I am quite certain that you will all answer my call, the ladies more particularly. I don't care so much about the enemy, whenever he comes, so long as I have the ladies with me.

Servants' Ball, Jan. 8th, 1908.

"I don't care so much about the enemy, whenever he comes, so long as I have the ladies with me."

I take this opportunity of thanking you, and all those in my service who have spent this year together with me, for the happy way in which we have been enabled to pass the whole year together in our mutual admiration for each other. I was going to say affection for each other, and I should like to think so. We are—I propose using a silly phrase to express our relations at Tredegar House—a brotherhood of men. We are here as a brotherhood of men, and a sisterhood of women, and I should like you to look upon me as one of yourselves. It may be, before this time next year, if things go on as they are, that I shall be calling you Comrade Perrot, and you will be calling me Comrade Morgan. Things are going very fast just now, but I think there is a right feeling throughout the country that we are going too fast. It may be that next year, instead of being summoned to the ball here you will be asked to

and we shall be invited to dance the Referendum Lancers.

Servants' Ball, January 17th, 1911.

"I shall be calling you Comrade Perrot, and you will be calling me Comrade Morgan."