return we might confidently expect from a responsive traffic. The
Chairman and most of the Board were a little aghast at what appeared, to
a small company that had only recently emerged from straitened
circumstances, a very large order. But Lord Pirrie came to the rescue,
strongly supported my proposal and commended the thoroughness with which
I had tackled the subject. The day was won, the carriages secure, and
the order for their construction was placed with a firm in Birmingham.
This expenditure was the precursor of further large outlays, for it was
soon seen that the prospects of the company warranted a bold course.

I may, I am sure, be pardoned if I quote here some words from the report
of Sir James Allport's Commission on Irish Public Works. It is dated 4th
January, 1888. I had then been less than three years with the County
Down, and so could claim but a modicum of the praise it contains, and my
modesty, therefore, need not be alarmed. The words are: "_The history of
the Belfast and County Down Company is sufficient to show how greatly
both shareholders and the public may benefit from the infusion into the
management of business qualities. In that case a board of business men
have in ten years raised the dividend on the ordinary stock from nil to
5.5 per cent., while giving the public an improved service and reduced
rates_." My satisfaction was the greater as I had given evidence before
the Commission, and helped to tell them the cheerful story of the
progress and development of the County Down Company. It was my first
appearance as a railway witness and before Sir James Allport, who had
commanded my unbounded admiration from my first entrance at Derby into
railway life. Need I say that to me it was an event of importance.

In the year 1875 the Board of the County Down, after an investigation of
its affairs by a Committee of Shareholders, was reorganised, and it was
then that Mr. Richard Woods Kelly became Chairman, and Lord (then Mr.)