WELLS presided, and there was a numerous attendance.

Mr. WELLS, while he struck and maintained a jubilant note throughout
his eloquent speech, tempered enthusiasm with caution. The Grecians,
he said, like the Greeks, were wily folk and capable of shamming dead
while they were all the while scheming and plotting to restore their
imperilled supremacy. Indeed he knew it as a fact that some of the
most infatuated scholars actually voted against compulsion, simply to
confuse the issue. Still, for the moment it was a great victory, a
crushing blow to Oxford, the stronghold of mediaevalism, incompetence
and Hanoverianism, and an immense relief to the sorely-tried physique
of the nation. For he was able to assure them, speaking with the
authority of one who had taken first-class honours in Zoology, that
the study of Greek more than anything else predisposed people to
influenza by promoting cachexia, often leading to arterio-sclerosis,
bombination of the tympanum, and even astigmatism of the pineal gland.
(Sensation.)

Mr. PEMBERTON BILLING, M.P., speaking from the seat of an aeroplane,
said that he had found the little Greek he remembered from his
school-days not only no help but a positive hindrance to his advocacy
of a strong Air policy. The efforts of the Greeks as pioneers of
aviation were grossly exaggerated and, speaking as an expert, he
denounced these literary fictions as so much hot air. There were at
least forty-seven thousand reasons against Greek, but he would
be content with two. It didn't pay, and it was much harder than
Esperanto.

Mr. WILLIAM LE QUEUX in a most impressive speech said that he was
no enemy of ancient learning. Egyptology was only a less favourite