take the post of treasurer of an indemnity fund. He readily consented, but pointed out that the compliment would be more valuable if it were devoid of anything suggestive of politics. He was a prominent member of the Unionist Party. It would be well if a joint treasurer were appointed in the person of a member of the then Opposition. The point was readily conceded, and Mr. William Jones, a Welsh member of uncompromising Radical principles, was joined with the Colonel in the friendly undertaking. The The time was unpropitious. month of August had been entered on, and after a laborious Session many members had left town on holidays more or less distant. Nevertheless the movement promptly met with gratifying success. The original intention, set forth in the circular issued by the joint treasurers, was to invite only "Toby M.P.'s" personal friends in the House of Commons to subscribe. The matter was, however, quickly taken up in the House of Lords, many peers sending in subscriptions unsolicited. With the object of widening the area of sympathizers subscriptions were limited to one guinea. The personality of the subscribers added largely to the value of the generous testimony. In the first list of the joint treasurers, including one hundred names, were those of the Speaker (Mr. Lowther), the ex-Speaker (Viscount Selby), the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the exChancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Ritchie), the Colonial Secretary, the Minister of Agriculture, the Postmaster-General, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, the Secretary to the Local Government Board, the Solicitor-General for Ireland, the Solicitor-General for England, Mr. Asquith, K.C., Mr. Fletcher Moulton, K.C., Mr. Haldane, K.C., Mr. Robson, K.C., the Duke of Argyle, Mr. Chamberlain, the Marquis of Ripon, the Earl of Crewe, Viscount Ridley, Lord Rothschild, Lord James of Hereford, Lord Rathmore, Lord Burnham, Lord Denman, Sir Henry Fowler, Sir Edward Grey, Lord Monkswell, Mr. Bryce, Sir Arthur Hayter, Sir Charles Dilke, and Lord Hugh Cecil. Such a demonstration, emanating from so wide, diversified, and distinguished a source, more than compensated for the worry and expense entailed by the law proceedings. It was the more valuable and gratifying since, whilst through the more than thirty years I had been daily and weekly discoursing about Parliamentary affairs, I had never concealed my opinion about personalities, never been false to my political conviction, never modified expression of either save at the dictates of good taste. In the affair I recognize a leading impulse in the respect and esteem with which my august master, Mr. "Punch," is regarded in Parliamentary circles. Any portion of the kindness that may have overflowed in my personal direction is hereby gratefully acknowledged. In the spring of the following year (1904) I received other evidence of the personal friendship of a large body of members of the House of Commons. Having retired from the post of Parliamentary Summary writer to the "Daily Telegraph," assumed when, in 1890, the "Daily News" passed under new proprietorship, I found myself at the opening of the session without the right of entrance to the Press Gallery. The rules which govern admission to that sanctum are as unintelligent as they are arbitrary. Half a century ago, when the English Press was something quite different from the institution of to-day, admission to the Gallery was limited to the London morning papers. Each had allotted to it two boxes, one for the leader and summary writer, the other for the re porting staff. The "Times" had, and to this day retains, three boxes. When on the cheapening of the telegraph service, the country Press grew in power and in number, establishing London offices and engaging London staffs, pressure was brought to bear on the authorities of the House of Commons to provide accommodation in the Press Gallery. After long resistance this was conceded, by taking in a portion of the members' side galleries and the construction of ten additional boxes. This was an innovation calculated to make the typical Serjeant-at-Arms turn in his family grave. Whilst the concession to modern development was grudgingly made there was rigidly preserved the old tradition that admission to the Press Gallery was obtainable only by men directly representing the papers on the official list. The last eight years have seen the birth and growth of the halfpenny morning paper. In some instances circulation, according to uncontradicted declaration, to-day far exceeds that of any of the older papers recognized in the Press Gallery. Yet I, representing one of these, having undertaken to contribute a daily article throughout the Session, found myself not only without a box in the Press Gallery but my name was struck off the Lobby List, at the head of which it stood by seniority. The halfpenny morning papers directly concerned have with cynical effect since put this matter right by buying up morning papers of old standing in London and the provinces, with the result that they now have something equal to one-half of the whole accommodation of the Press Gallery from which they were at the outset excluded. fess it seemed reasonable, as in the event it proved to be the opinion of a large section of the House of Commons, that the hard and fast rule might in my case have been varied, the freedom of the Press Gallery and the Lobby, enjoyed over thirty years, being confirmed on personal grounds. Assuming that the Gallery was provided as a means of securing information for the public of what went on at Westminster, it seemed absurd to put up the bars against one whose daily and weekly circle of readers was probably equal to the aggregate of ten ordinary holders of Gallery tickets. However the existence of such a rule saves trouble to the constituted authorities. They entrench themselves behind it when occasion arises. Thus it befell that I was shut out from any part of the House, except that open to the ordinary stranger. On this becoming known I had within the space of a single week communications from between seventy and eighty members offering to ballot daily for places in the Strangers' Gallery, so that I might be secure of entrance. The Speaker, whilst pointing out that the jurisdiction of the Press Gallery rested not with him but with the Serjeant-atArms, gave instructions that whenever there was room below the Strangers' Gallery on the floor of the House I should be passed in by the doorkeeper without the necessity of making formal application for admission. This still left untouched the question of my exclusion from the Lobby, a serious impediment to performance of my daily work. Having failed in other quarters, I appealed direct to Mr. Arthur Balfour, then Prime Minister. He approached the Speaker, who at once decided to create a precedent, giving me access to the Lobby, not in accordance with the rule as representative of a particular paper, but in my I con- own name. Meanwhile, in order to perform my work in connection with quarters wide apart from the "Daily Express," it was necessary that I should have access during the sittings both to the Press Gallery and the Lobby. In communicating the decision the Speaker graciously wrote: "I have been very glad to have been able to maintain the policy of the open door for you. To have closed the door would have caused an eclipse of the gaiety of Parliament; or, to speak more accurately, it would have shut out those little shafts of light with which you daily and weekly pierce our Cimmerian darkness." XXI. A LECTURING TOUR. In 1897 the Directors of the Crystal Palace, desiring to pay a tribute to Queen Victoria on the sixtieth anniversary of her coming to the Throne, projected a series of lectures upon various features of her long reign, to be delivered by experts in the concert room. At the instance of Sir Arthur Otway, sometime Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons, I was selected to treat the subject of the Parliaments of the Victorian era. I could not plead that I was "unacquainted with public speaking," having suffered it through many Sessions. But I had never appeared on a public platform and did not recognize in myself aptitude for the position. Sir Arthur Otway was encouraging and insistent, and I yielded. Instinctively feeling that the insufficiency of the lecturer demanded exceptional attraction in the person of the chairman, I wrote to Sir William Harcourt, asking him to preside. plied: He re I feel, as in the case of war, if they must come sooner or later, better later, and if we are to throw stones in a glass house I think May more propitious than March. Therefore if I should happen to be alive I will do my possible to sit-not stand-by you on May 12. Yours sincerely, W. V. Harcourt. On the approach of the, to me, eventful day reports appeared in the newspapers notifying that Sir William was confined to his room by illness. These were confirmed by receipt of the following letter: My dear Lucy,-You are aware that an influence over which I have no control has disabled me from all the offices of public duty and personal enjoyment. It is a real disappointment to me to find myself deprived of the opportunity of assisting in the character of one of the oldest inhabitants at your lecture on the House of Commons. I feel sure it will be a most interesting and instructive reading in comparative anatomy by an experienced physiologist, who is well acquainted with the body politic it will be his business to dissect. We who are your subjects recognize in your kindly hand the art of a skilful surgeon who knows how to operate on his patients under anæsthetics without pain. A critic without malice and a reviewer without prejudice is a character on which the House of Commons may congratulate itself, and by whom it may profit. Humor, above all good humor, is the salt of life, and you have set the example in applying to politics this excellent antiseptic. Yours very sincerely, self at the result of the enterprise. The hall, which may be well enough as a concert room, is a gloomy sepulchre of ordered speech. It was not more than half full, and, as those on the back seats could only partly hear, there was no approach to enthusiasm. We got along somehow. George Russell made a cheery speech. As for me, having among few natural gifts endowment of something of the mental habit of Mark Tapley in adverse circumstances, I betrayed no discomfiture. Perhaps I was buoyed up by reflection on the fact (a consolation not shared by my chairman) that in addition to the fee paid by the Crystal Palace Directors, the editor of the "North American Review" had paid me 501. for the manuscript of the lecture, which was published in two successive numbers of his magazine. Amongst the audience, unknown to me, was a gentleman whose presence had important influence on subsequent events. He was the manager of the leading London Lecture Agency, and was so far favorably impressed with the discourse that he asked me to permit him to obtain for me engagements to deliver it in various parts of the country. As the lecture season falls during the Parliamentary Recess, I, under the impression that the enterprise would involve some six or eight excursions, left the matter in his hands. Before the season opened he had booked over forty engagements in London and the provinces, a considerable number of invitations coming from Scotland. It was pretty hard work, there being rarely a day's intermission from a railway journey with a lecture at night. The tour actually took the form of a series of visits to the town and country houses of friends. I do not think that through the long course of travel I more than three times put up at an hotel. There was perhaps a tendency to kill one with kindness. Invariably my host made the visit occasion for a banquet, to which he bade a considerable number of guests. This was not the best preparation for delivery of a lecture of upwards of an hour's duration. It was kindly meant and was certainly pleasant. My difficulty was to fit in the invitations showered on me by the kindness of friends. One I particularly regretted having to decline is conveyed in the following note: Belmont Castle, Meigle, Scotland: My dear Lucy,-Only to-day have I seen in the local papers that you are going to lecture in Dundee on Friday. You will therefore be within threequarters of an hour of us: and what you are to do is to come here on Saturday morning and stay. Why should you not stay over the Harcourt festival next week? He is coming here on Monday night, and reposes here until the anvil is ready on which his hammer will fall on Thursday, to the confusion of all timid people and the delight of all who love a row. You are not wanted anywhere else at this time of year. Judging by the contents of the papers, they might as well be written anywhere as in London. Why not do your "Pall Mall" gossip from here? You may become even a "mere outsider." and copying his fashion predict on Monday what you will announce on Friday as having happened on Thursday. If you are wise and bring Mrs. Lucy with you, underline all I have said, for everything would be doubled, from our pleasure downwards. And she might come here on Friday, in anticipation of you; for I am sure she can forego the pleasure of listening to your thunder on Friday. Do come. Yours always, H. Campbell-Bannerman. Lord Rosebery, ever hospitable, telegraphed asking me to stay at Dalmeny during the visit to Edinburgh. I was already pledged to be the guest of Lord Robertson, then Lord Justice General of Scotland, who, breaking through a habit long enforced by official duties, consented to appear on a public platform in Edinburgh, presiding at the lecture delivered in the hall of the Institute. Later, lecturing at Epsom, Lord Rosebery sacrificed his dinner hour at the Durdans in order to take the chair, when, he delivered a sparkling speech on the Houses of Parliament. Under such ægis the faults of the lecture and the demerits of its delivery were overlooked. The tour proved an unexpected success. Lord Robertson, who has permanently crossed the Tweed to take his place in the House of Lords, where he ranks as Lord of Appeal, has the distinction of first bewildering, then delighting that august assembly. He too infrequently takes part in debate. When he rises he commands an audience which pays him the compliment of steadily increasing numbers. Speaking in the first portion of the current Session on a Government Bill involving (I think) the compulsory purchase of Scottish land, he asked the The Cornhill Magazine. House to suppose that an analogous measure had been brought in affecting a London suburb. "There might," he continued, "be expęcted to come forward a householder who said, 'I am, although perhaps it is not I who should say it, a model of all civic virtues. And yet my villa is going to be taken from me.' In amplification of his claim to be a person of the highest virtues he might go on to say, 'I am a member of the National Liberal Club, a teetotaler, and a passive resister. I have recently married my deceased wife's sister, and none of my children have been vaccinated.'" Noble lords dozing on back benches, and others entering at the moment when Lord Robertson with artfully raised voice and emphatic manner declaimed these accumulative peculiarities of a pragmatical Radical, for a moment thought that here was public confession of infirmity openly made, a sort of breaking of "The Silence of Dean Maitland." The apprehension was only momentary, and was followed by an explosion of mirth whose hilarity was unfamilar in the staid circle. Henry W. Lucy. (To be continued.) IX. SALLY: A STUDY. BY HUGH CLIFFORD, C. M. G. From that day onward Saleh abandoned his rambles in Richmond Park. He dreaded to meet the little Princess again, and to be forced once more to listen to the bitter railings which had so disquieted him. Yet the story of the House of Baram Singh, as she had told it, still troubled him; for if she had spoken the truth, her people had been the victims of injustice and hardship, and their history was a dreadful and inexplicable tragedy. He wished that he possessed a deeper knowledge of history and of affairs, for he felt dimly that there must be some explanation, something resembling a justification for all that the English were stated to have done. Failing such knowledge, he was plunged in doubt, in uncertainty; he was a prey to uncomfortable suspicions suddenly aroused; he longed to be convinced that all was as it should be, but knew not where to turn in search of enlightenment. He could not bring himself to ask questions of the Fairfaxes, partly because he was reluctant to appear to be identifying |