Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/295

 NOTES BY THE WAY. 225

74 succumbed to this, and 54 to pneumonia. Of the 24 women who died, 2 died from tuberculosis and 2 from pneumonia.

Mr. Sydney Buxton closes his report with the expression of his " appreciation of the spirit of loyalty and devotion to duty which animates all classes in the Post Office service." This reminds me of Mr. Buxton Forman's speech on the occasion of his retirement from the Post Office in 1907, after forty-seven years' service, when, Mr. Buxton as a farewell gift from his colleagues, the great folio Chaucer illus- Forman's trated by Sir Edward Burne- Jones, and printed at the Kelmscott retirement. Press, was presented to him. Mr. Forman said : " There is only one thing for us to look for and to strive after, and that is the effi- ciency of the vast machine we are all a part of." He then referred to " one association in the Post Office of the value of which I shall

carry a very high estimate they had no formal organization

their inspiration was derived from one thought, and that was

the efficiency of the service was the only thing to strive for. I only remember one tenet that passed between the lips of those men, and it was this : ' No man shall fight for his own hand ; but all of us will do our best to promote the efficient working of the service.' "* Mr. Buxton Forman's well-known devotion to litera- ture requires no comment. Specially will he be for ever remembered by all lovers of Keats and Shelley.


 * St. Martiris le Grand, October, 1907.

�� �