As so much interest has lately been created by the descriptions given of
the _Punch_ dinners and the doings of the _Punch_ staff, I may state
that the promoters of our local _Charivari_ also combined pleasant
social intercourse with their journalistic functions. The monthly
dinners of the _Town Crier_ staff remain in my memory as being among the
most delightful and genial evenings I have ever spent in my life. We met
at each other's houses, and after a nice satisfying dinner we proceeded
to pipes and paths of pleasantness, and to planning the contents for the
next number of our paper.

Large and hearty was the hilarity at these monthly meetings, and I
think I may say that the talk was interesting and smart. Mr. J.H.
Chamberlain was often positively brilliant in his little sallies of
speech, whilst Mr. J.T. Bunce would put in dry, sententious words of wit
and wisdom. Mr. G.J. Johnson laid down the law with pungent perspicuity,
and Mr. William Harris was amusingly epigrammatic. Mr. Sam Timmins on
these occasions was ever ready with an apt remark, very often containing
an apt quotation, and Mr. Sebastian Evans smoked and laughed much, made
incisive little observations, and drew sketches on blotting paper.

As we were all more or less interested in or concerned with the most
important matters that were then going on in the town, there was much to
be said that was worth saying and hearing. Even in the wheels that were
within wheels some of the _Town Crier_ men had spokes. A bank could not
break without some of us being concerned in the smash, and I remember
to my sorrow that when the Birmingham Banking Company came to grief I
was an unfortunate shareholder.

I do not think it necessary to say much more concerning the early days