The Henson Journals

[109]

Tuesday, February 5th, 1929.

I walked to the Church House, and spent a dismal morning listening to the dullest conceivable of debates on Patronage. I lunched at the Athenaeum. Lord Lytton came to the next table, & started talking very interestingly about India. He said that on one of his official inspections, he had found a widow serving a sentence of 2 years imprisonment for child–murder. On inquiry he found that she had borne 4 children, all of whom had died in infancy: when her 5th child was born, she had recourse to the leaders of the sect, who told her that if she presented it to the sacred crocodile in the Temple tank, it would be given back to her strong & healthy. She followed this fatal advice, & the babe was gobbled by the reptile. Lytton caused the poor creature to be set free, & lamented his inability to punish the ill–counsellors. I interviewed two ordination candidates in the afternoon, & then had tea in the Club. Lord Crawford & Balcarres walked with me almost to Park Lane: where I dressed for dinner with the Club.

[110]

I dined at the Club: there were present:–

Lord Sumner

" Crawford & Balcarres

" Hugh Cecil

Austen Chamberlain

Hugh Macmillan

Sir Henry Newbolt

" Charles Oman

John Bailey

Professor G.M. Trevelyan

Bishop of Durham

The Secretary (Kenyon)

I sat between Lord Sumner & Hugh Macmillan, and had a very pleasant evening. Our conversation was vivid & well–sustained. It ranged over a great variety of subjects, & contained an uncommonly large number of witty & original utterances: but, when I seek to recall what interested me so much, I find nothing but a vague & mingled mass of reminiscence, out of which nothing of lasting worth emerges!

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