Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 - 1929), Wednesday 22 May 1918, page 6


WELCOME TO AN OLD ADELAIDEAN

At the luncheon hour on Tuesday about 30 old scholars of the old Adelaide Educational Institution assembled at the Ruthven Mansions Cafe for the purpose of welcom-

ing Mr. Eden H. Babbage, an old scholar, who is now a resident of Sydney. Mr. Peter Wood occupied the chair, and in feli-citous terms proposed Mr. Babbage's health. Their guest, he said, had from the time of leaving Mr. Young's academy been connected with the Bank of Aus-tralasia, where he had risen from the lowest rang of the ladder to the highest. Since be had retired from the service of tbe bank he had settled in Sydney, where, like a true patriot, he was engaged in patriotic work, and was closely associated with the Voluntary Workers' Association, whose members were principally occupied in building cottages for returned soldiers in order to give them a position on the land. (Applause.) They were all de-lighted to see their old friend, and to find him looking so well. (Ap- plause.) Mr. W. Herbert Phillipps and Mr. J. S. Wright supported, and the health of the guest was drunk with musical honours. Mr. Babbage, in responding, said he entered the late Mr. J. L. Young's school about 1852 or 1853. At that time Mr. Bennett was second master and Messrs. Joyce, Nootnagel and Needham were on the teaching staff. The only other schools at that time were St. Peter's College and Whinham's. He (the speaker) first went to a dame's school in Florence. He was a native of Italy, having been born in Genoa, his father was a railway engineer on the Great Western Railway under Brunel. Then he went to Italy, and con-structed the first railway there. He was

subsequently engineer for the Port rail-way-the first in South Australia. Mr. Babbage then gave some interesting details of the old scholars at Mr. Young's school with whom he was associated, and said that when he entered the Bank of Australasia the late Mr. Samuel Tomkinson was the Adelaide manager. He (the speaker) subsequently filled positions in the other States and New Zealand, and only returned in 1914. He caused a hearty laugh by say-ing he had'never smoked in his life but oncee, and that was as a boy, under a bridge in Florence. The effect was that he was violently ill, and he was shut up in a cupboard as a punishment by his governess. He recently saw a picture of Mark Twain smoking a cigar and a statement by the great humorist that whereas he formerly smoked 40 cigars a day he subsequently was allowed only 10 a day. He (Mr. Babbage) had worked out what he had saved on that ratio by not smoking and found that it came to £74,000 with compound interest added.