construction and working,
familiarised me with the Light Railway Legislation of Ireland, with which
in subsequent years I was often concerned.

In the autumn of 1889, in company with Mr. Jackson (afterwards Lord
Allerton), then Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Andrews and other
directors of the County Down, I visited Ardglass. Under the new Act the
Treasury, in connection with the projected railway construction, held the
purse strings, and the Treasury, so far as we were concerned, was Mr.
Jackson. We of the County Down were keen on getting the line sanctioned,
and were very anxious concerning Mr. Jackson's visit. He was a man who
drove a hard bargain, so it was said. Certainly he was an able man, and
I greatly admired him that day. Later in life, when he was Lord
Allerton, and Chairman of the Great Northern Railway of England, I met
him again and liked him well.

In 1889 there were no _light railways_ in Great Britain, or practically
none. Except in Ireland they are of modern growth. What really
constitutes a light railway it is not easy to say. Commonly it is
thought to be a matter of gauge, but that is not so. Mr. Acworth says:
"such a definition is in the nature of things impossible," but that, "a
light railway must be something simpler and cheaper than an ordinary
railway." Mr. Cole says that "the natural demand for a definition must
he frankly met with the disappointing reply that a hard and fast
definition, at once concise, exact, and comprehensive is not forthcoming,
and that a partial definition would be completely misleading." As such
authorities are unable to furnish a definition I shall not attempt it,
and will content myself with suggesting that the most recognisable
feature of a _light_ railway is its _light_ traffic.

CHAPTER XIX.
GOLF, THE DIAMOND KING, AND A STEAM-BOAT SERVICE

Thought not a golfer myself, never having taken to the game in earnest,
or played on more than, perhaps, twenty occasions in my life, I may yet,
I think, in a humble way, venture to claim inclusion amongst the pioneers
of golf in Ireland, where until the year 1881 it was unknown. In the
autumn of that year the Right Honourable Thomas Sinclair, Dr. Collier, of
"British History" fame, and Mr. G. L. Baillie, a born golfer from
Scotland, all three keen on the game, set themselves in Belfast to the
task of establishing a golf club there. They succeeded well, and soon
the Belfast Golf Club, to which is now added