Part 14 (1/2)
I was dining that evening at the Oxford and Ca When I arrived there I was ushered into the club drawing-roo would join uests already in the rooentleined when I discovered that it was the very man who had pointed us out at theof the Reform Club a few hours earlier
He was Mr Charles Elton, then one of the nisewas irresistible ”You were at theat the Carlton Club this afternoon, were you not?” I said to hi in the affirmative, and then added, ”But you were not there?” ”No,” I said, ”but did you observe anything curious at the Reforence
”Yes!” he said, ”I did There were a couple of scallywags”--it was the first time I had ever heard thisthat I have nearly forgotten it--”watching us through opera-glasses fro to a man who through the ventilator to the speeches” No words can express the sense of relief I felt when I heard this absurd statement ”No,” I replied, ”I assure you that you are s ere looking out of the Reforise sincerely for lass between us, and we had nobody posted on the top of the Carlton Club to listen to the speeches Upon that you may rely” Elton stared at hter, in which I joined hiot the burden off my soul; but I had received another proof of the frequency hich that long arm of coincidence asserts itself
As a result of the passing of the Franchise Bill, and the creation of single-member constituencies which accompanied it, a Boundary Commission had to be appointed, to settle the boundaries of the new electoral divisions In order to prevent gerryreed that this Commission should not only be quite independent of both parties, but that it should have absolute powers Its chairman was Sir John Lambert, secretary of the Local Governreat Forster, coan to talk to me about the Boundary Commission, and the supreme powers vested in Sir John Lah, and I knew that he had a story to tellup the stairs of the Local Government office to see Lambert the other day,” he said, ”and Ithe name of the for down 'Hullo, Forster!' he cried, 'what in the world are you doing here?' 'Well, I was just going to call on the land,' I replied ---- took off his hat and made me a lo 'I hope you didn't undeceive him,' I said 'Oh, yes, I did,' replied Forster I told hi my hands over this fresh illustration of my friend's inability to set his sails in such a fashi+on as to catch the approval of others
It was over this redistribution question that I had the only difference of opinion I ever had with Forster He was an ardent supporter of the single-member constituency, or _scrutin d'arrondissement_, as the French call it, in opposition to _scrutin de liste_ I, on the other hand, foresaw that the new system would break up the powerful political associations in our great towns, and thus destroy a political force which I believed to be of great value I fought strenuously in the _Leeds Mercury_ against what I styled the vivisection of the great boroughs; but I need not say that I fought in vain I had ument with Forster on the subject, but he would never adh after twenty years' experience and observation I ainal opinion
Before this tier which never hurt--by the action I had taken, in coard to the School Board election We found that the cue constituency was almost unworkable It had resulted in Leeds in the election, at the head of the poll on one occasion, of a ue of no account In order to obviate any further misfortune of this kind my friend Mathers, the honorary secretary of the Liberal association, devised a plan under which the toas divided by the Liberals into different divisions To each of these divisions we allotted certain candidates, and we asked the electors who sympathised with us to vote only for the candidate allotted to the division in which they lived The plan proved a brilliant success, for we carried all our candidates at that election, and thisover the difficulties of the cue towns, including London Forster was greatly wroth at the time, and told me that he looked upon the scheme as a dishonest attempt to evade an Act of Parliaes Certain desperate Irish societies, chiefly financed and recruited fro to advance the Holand ”Holy dynamite,” as that powerful explosive was christened, was the weapon ees were committed in London and other places The most notable of these were the simultaneous attempts to wreck the House of Commons, Westminster Hall, and the Tower of London These audacious crimes were committed on a Saturday afternoon
I spent the whole of the next raiven, and in writing an article for Monday's _Mercury_ on the subject In the afternoon I went over to Wakefield to keep an engagement I had made to dine and sleep at Thorns, the residence of my friends Mr and Lady Catherine Milnes Gaskell I well remember the scene when I entered the beautiful library at Thorns, about five o'clock There was a large party there, including the Duke and duchess of St Albans, Mr and Mrs Goschen, and Mr W B
Beaumont, of Bretton
When I was announced, Gaskell ju, ”Noe shall have news!” and instantly the whole party flocked round er to know the truth as to the wild rumour which was all they had as yet heard of the devastation wrought by the dyna's work had, of course, qualified me to satisfy their curiosity, but the questions they poured in upon ed to ask them to sit down, and let ly proceeded to do amid the breathless attention ofas a characteristic incident of life in England in those days We had an ene war upon us within our own gates; and though the invincible courage of our race enabled us to pursue our oay in spite of the new terror that had arisen ast us, ere none of us, as this scene in the library at Thorns proved, insensible to the horror of the situation, and the deadly character of the weapons used against us
At this ti members of the Liberal Govern the special object of Irish anih he were still a Minister Some Ministers, it was asserted, not only enjoyed, but desired, the constant co stories were told of the way in which they arrived at Mayfair dinner-parties accompanied by ”stern-faced men” with revolvers in their pockets I shall not repeat these stories, for I cannot bring lish states whom Mr Gladstone and Mr Forster were conspicuous, loathed the presence of the police agents dogging their footsteps, and keeping watch at their doors, and tried in every possible way to evade them Mr
Gladstone, with the collar of his overcoat turned up to his ears, used suddenly to dash out of the garden door at the back of Downing Street, and atteet rid of his bodyguard Occasionally he succeeded, but I a from the Home Secretary and the Chief Commissioner of Police that he was at last compelled to abandon his efforts to secure his unfettered liberty of action Forster ed to obtain exeuard, but a policeht in front of his house in Eccleston Square, not only to his disgust, but to that of one of his neighbours, who quitted his abode rather than continue to live near so dangerous a character ”I often wonder,” said Forster to me one day, ”what I shall do if I find an infernal ht I knohat it is ht to take it up, and throw it into the middle of the square, but I am terribly afraid that I shan't have the pluck, and shall simply turn round and run away”
nobody who knew Forster could believe that he would ever have acted in any such fashi+on
I hadletters were flying about, and I received a fair share of them, for I was at that ti, on going down to hfare called Bank Street, I was startled by being suddenly called upon to halt when near the office door, whilst a policeman's lantern was flashed in my face One of our workmen explained my identity to the officer, and I was allowed to pass I then learned that the Leeds police had received information of a plot to blow up the _Mercury_ office, and they had, accordingly, posted guards round the building I was in the habit of driving ho, to ested that I should be accoer, and desired no such protection In the depths of one winter's night, when a thaas dissolving a heavy fall of snow, I had a great fright I had leftthe steps leading to the porch ofon the half-e bundle wrapped in sacking I drew near it cautiously, and heard a curious ticking sound proceeding from it ”An infernal machine!” I exclaihtened The outer door of the porch was unlocked, and, opening it, I bounded inside, carefully avoiding the object which I suspected I unlocked the inner door, and, entering the house, locked and barred it behind -room, reason asserted itself, and I felt heartily asha were an infernal e if it exploded where it lay I strung -point, went out, unlocked the door, seized theit as far as I could into a little shrubbery in the garden There was no explosion such as I had expected Nothing, indeed, happened; but when I got back to -room, and saw my face in aI went out to look for the infernal machine It was a coarse sack, filled with blocks of wood and sawdust, and I have a strong suspicion that it had been placed where I found it as a practical joke The ticking which I had heard, and which had convinced me that I had to deal with an infernal machine, was evidently produced by the drip, drip of water fro on the step beneath it Such were features in the lives of men more or less before the public eye in the years of the dyna with reat loss
This was the death at Vichy of hton No kinder friend than he h at his peculiarities, which lay upon the surface, and to ignore the sterling qualities that forht to speak of a man as you find him, then I aenerous man, or a truer friend, than Monckton Milnes To me he was all this I have told already the story of our first acquaintance in 1870, and of the debt which I very soon owed him I could fill a volu my frequent visits to Fryston, and of the warmth of his sympathy with one who had no claim upon him I haveback upon the list I ah the h that of any otherthose whom I first met at his house, I must not omit Edward, fourteenth Earl of Derby, better known in his tin Secretary under the premiershi+p of his brilliant father, the thirteenth Earl Lord Derby--the ures of his generation Men slandered hireat Liberal leader, he did not possess that strong following of ardent adherents who stood by their chief, no ht frown upon him
Lord Derby was one of the shyest of men, and, as a consequence, he was really known, even when he was in the thick of his political work, by only a few men and wohest esteehton, and often he would remark upon the fact that Lord Derby was almost as unpopular as his father had been the reverse He cited this as a proof of the incapacity of the public for for correct estimates of character I had been in confidential correspondence with Lord Derby long before I first met him at Fryston, and in 1879 I wrote an article in _Macn Office, and with his reason for resigning his post in Lord Beaconsfield's Administration This article ritten on information which he supplied, and he himself corrected the proof-sheets Yet these facts did not prevent so that I holly mistaken in my account of Lord Derby's action andis so certain to meet with an absolute contradiction in the Press as an indubitable fact which comes as a piece of unexpected news to the ordinary journalist
When I hton's roof he was far too shy to make any reference to our previous correspondence, yet when the first painful ehtful companion, and his conversation was full of the chare and marked intellectual power No man was simpler than he in his intercourse with those who to hi to one who had held the great office of Foreign Secretary Instead of laying down the law upon foreign affairs he seemed anxious to elicit the opinions of other persons, and he displayed aHe has been described as the incarnation of coeneral public believed him to be as full of facts and as dry as a Blue Book In reality he had a decided love of huood stories, had all the light and shade, the warht to possess
He was aly frank in his criticisms upon men and upon current affairs
The outer world believed hi every word before he uttered it, and nevera rash remark, whereas he was very much the reverse I have, for example, heard him discuss the characters of European states He was fond, too, of passing criticisered one by their boldness I think it was in 1883 that he told me that, in his opinion, there was no future for the Tory party Conservatism as a force was played out, and the destinies of the country ive a slight sketch of the man as he really was, and not as he was believed to be by the contemporary public If he was neither so wise nor so cautious asand more human, and all who really knew him mourned his death as a personal loss
When I first h he had made up his mind to sever his connection with the Conservatives, he had taken no open steps in the direction of the other camp The first time he ever entered a Liberal club, and o to the Leeds Liberal Club to receive an address froures I associate with Fryston and its gifted owner
The very last ti experience It was in the late autuhton had just met with a rather severe and painful accident He had been staying at the Durdans with Lord Rosebery, and during the night had fallen out of bed, fracturing his collar-bone His own account of the accident was that he had drea hi to escape he had tuht, according to his wont, of his injuries, and positively went down to Yorkshi+re the day after the accident in order to attend aof Quarter Sessions It was only on his return to tohere he was staying with his sister, the Dowager Viscountess Galway, that he consulted a doctor, who found that the collar-bone was fractured, and at once ordered hihton was not by nature fitted I went to call on hied e a little dinner party for his amusement while he was invalided