Chapter IV: (viewed by Henry W. Lucy.) (1)

ABOUT INDENTED HEADINGS.

I suppose if anyone has a right to indulge in the convenience of indented headings when writing a discursive article, I may claim a share in the privilege. When I retired from the editorship of a morning newspaper, a not obtrusively friendly commentator wrote that my chief claim to be remembered in that connection was that I had invented sign-posts for leading articles. But he was careful to add, lest I should be puffed up, this was not sufficient to establish editorial reputation.

It is true; but it is interesting to observe how the way thus adventured upon has grown crowded. The abstentions indicate a curious and interesting habitude ingrained in the English Press. Whilst most of the weekly papers, not only in the provinces but in London, have adopted the new fashion, no daily paper in London, and in the country only one here and there, has followed it. That is a nice distinction, illustrating a peculiarity of our honoured profession. As it was a daily paper that made the innovation, weekly papers may, without loss of dignity, adopt the custom as their own. But it is well known that, in London at least, there is only one daily paper, and that is the "We" speaking from a particular address, located somewhere between Temple Bar and St. Paul's.

Argal, it is impossible that this peculiarly situated entity should borrow from other papers. Yet I once heard the manager of what we are pleased to call the leading journal confess he envied the _Daily News'_ side-headings to its leaders, and regretted the impossibility of adapting them for his own journal. That was an opinion delivered in mufti. In full uniform, no manager--certainly no editor--of another morning paper is aware of the existence of the _Daily News_; the _Daily News_, on its part, being courageously steeped in equally dense ignorance of the existence of other journals.

Few things are so funny as the start of surprise with which a London journal upon rare occasion finds itself face to face with a something that also appears every morning at a price varying from a penny to threepence. Nothing will induce it to give the phenomenon a name, and it distantly alludes to it as "a contemporary." This is quite peculiar to Great Britain, and is in its way akin to the etiquette of the House of Commons, which makes it a breach of order to refer to a member by his proper name. It does not exist in France or the United States, and there are not lacking signs that the absurd lengths to which it has hitherto been carried out in the English Press are being shortened.

SIR WALTER BARTTELOT.

But that is an aside, meant only to introduce an old friend in a new place. I was going to explain how it came about that, in the mid-February issue of THE STRAND MAGAZINE, the name of Sir Walter Barttelot should appear in the list of members of the present House of Commons who had seats in the House in 1873, and that another number of the Magazine has been issued without the correction, widely made elsewhere, being noted. It is due simply to the fact of the phenomenal circulation of a magazine which, in order to be out to date, requires its contributors to send in their copy some two months in advance.

It is not too late to say a word about the late member for Sussex, a type rapidly disappearing from the Parliamentary stage. He entered the House thirty-three years ago, when Lord Palmerston was Premier, Mr. Gladstone was Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir George Cornewall Lewis was at the Home Office, and Lord John Russell looked after Foreign Affairs.

The House of Commons was a different place in those days, the heritage of the classes, a closed door against any son of the masses. Sir Walter was born a country gentleman, his natural prejudices not being smoothed down by a term of service in the Dragoon Guards. He was not a brilliant man, nor, beyond the level attainments of a county magistrate, an able one. But he was thoroughly honest; suspected himself of ingrained prejudice, and always fought against it. He suffered and learnt much during his long Parliamentary life.

One of the earliest shocks dealt him was the appearance in the House of Mr. Chamberlain, newly elected for Birmingham. It is difficult at this time of day to realize the attitude in which the gentlemen of England sixteen years ago stood towards the statesman who is now proudly numbered in their ranks. When he presented himself to be sworn in, it was one of the jokes of the day that Sir Walter Barttelot expected he would approach the Table making "a cart-wheel" down the floor, as ragged little boys disport themselves along the pavement when a drag or omnibus passes. Sir Walter was genuinely surprised to find in the fearsome Birmingham Radical a quietly-dressed, well-mannered, almost boyish-looking man, who spoke in a clear, admirably pitched voice, and opposed the Prisons Bill, then under discussion, on the very lines from which Sir Walter had himself attacked it when it was brought in during the previous Session.

It was characteristic of this fine old English gentleman that, having done a man an injustice by unconsciously forming a wrong opinion about him, he hastened forthwith to make amends.

"If," he said, when Mr. Chamberlain had resumed his seat, "the hon. member for Birmingham will always address the House with the same quietness, and with the same intelligence displayed on this occasion, I can assure him the House of Commons will always be ready to listen to him."

This is delicious, looking back over the years, watching Mr. Chamberlain's soaring flight, and thinking of the good county member thus loftily patronizing him. But it was a bold thing to be said at that time of Mr. Chamberlain by Sir Walter Barttelot, and some friends who sat near him thought his charity had led him a little too far.

The Sussex squire was of a fine nature--simple, ever ready to be moved by generous impulses. There were two men coming across the moonlight orbit of his Parliamentary life whose conduct he detested, and whose influence he feared. One was Mr. Parnell, the other Mr. Bradlaugh. Yet when the Commission acquitted Mr. Parnell of the charges brought against him by the forged letters, Sir Walter Barttelot sought him out in the Lobby, publicly shook hands with him, and congratulated him upon the result of the inquiry. When Mr. Bradlaugh lay on his death-bed, on the very night the House of Commons was debating the resolution to expunge from the Order Book the dictum that stood there through eleven years, declaring him ineligible either to take the oath or to make affirmation, Sir Walter Barttelot appealed to the House unanimously to pass the motion, concluding his remarks with emphatic expression of the hope that "God would spare Mr. Bradlaugh's life."

Sir Walter never recovered from the blow dealt by the death of his son in Africa, aggravated as the sorrow was by the controversy which followed. Of late years he spoke very little; but in the Parliaments of 1874-80 and 1880-85 he was a frequent participator in debate. He was no orator, nor did he contribute original ideas to current discussion. Moreover, what he had to say was so tortured by the style of delivery that it lost something of whatever force naturally belonged to it.

I have a verbatim note taken fifteen years ago of a speech delivered in the House of Commons by Sir Walter, which faintly echoes an oratorical style whose master is no longer with us. It lacks the inconsequential emphasis, the terrific vigour of the gesture, and the impression conveyed by the speaker's intense earnestness, that really, by-and-by, he would say something, which compelled the attention of new members and strangers in the gallery. But if the reader imagines portentous pauses represented by the hyphens, and the deepening to tragic tones of the words marked in italics, he may in some measure realize the effect.

The speech from which this passage was taken was delivered in debate upon a resolution moved by Mr. Forster on the Cattle Plague Orders. Whenever in the passage Mr. Forster is personally alluded to it is necessary, in order to full realization of the scene, to picture Sir Walter shaking a minatory forefinger, sideways, at the right hon. gentleman, not looking at him, but pointing him out to the scorn of mankind and the reprobation of country gentlemen: "Yet _he knows_ [here the finger wags]--and--_knows full well_--in the--position he occupies--making a proposal of this kind--must be one--which--must be--fatal--to--the Bill. _No one knows better_ than the right hon. gentleman--that when--he--raises a great question _of this kind_--upon a Bill _of this sort_--_namely_ upon the second reading--of--this Bill--that that proposal--that he makes--is absolutely against the principle--of--the Bill. Now, I--de--ny that the principle--of--this Bill--is confined--and _is to be found_--in the 5th Schedule--of--the Bill."

A few minutes later an illustration occurred to the inspired orator, and was thus brought under the notice of the entranced House:--

"Now, Denmark--it is a _remark_--able country, is _Den_--mark--for--we have little--or no--dis--ease from _Den_--mark. The importation--from _Den_--mark--is something like fifty-six--thousand--cattle--_and the_ curious part of it is this, that _nine_teen--thousand--of these--were--cows--and _these cows_ came--to--this country--and--had been allowed to go--_all over_--this country--and--I have never yet heard--that these cows that--have so--gone over _this country_--have spread any disease--in this country--."

This was a mannerism which amused the House at the time, but did nothing to obscure the genuine qualities of Sir Walter, or lessen the esteem in which he was held. It cannot be said that the House of Commons was habitually moved by his argument in debate. But he was held in its warmest esteem, and his memory will long be cherished as linked with the highest type of English country gentleman.

THE PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.

At this time of writing there is talk in the House about payment of members. A private member has placed on the paper a resolution affirming the desirability of adopting the principle, and it is even said--(which I take leave to doubt)--that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has a card up his sleeve intended to win this game. It would be rash to predict stubborn resistance on the part of a body that has so often proved itself open to conviction as has the House of Commons. But I should say that to secure this end it would need a tussle quite as prolonged and as violent as has raged round Home Rule. Lowering and widening the suffrage has done much to alter the personal standard of the House of Commons. Nothing achieved through these sixty years would in its modifying effect equal the potency of the change wrought by paying members.

One illustration is found in the assertion, made with confidence, that under such a system the House would know no more men of the type of Sir Walter Barttelot. He was not the highest form of capacity, knowledge, or intelligence. But he was of the kind that gives to the House of Commons the lofty tone it speedily regains even after a paroxysm of post-prandial passion. The House of Commons is unique in many ways. I believe the main foundation of the position it holds among the Parliaments of the world is this condition of volunteered unremunerated service.

In spite of sneers from disappointed or flippant persons, a seat in the House of Commons still remains one of the highest prizes of citizen life. When membership becomes a business, bringing in say L6 a week, the charm will be gone. As things stand, there is no reason why any constituency desiring to do so may not return a member on the terms of paying him a salary. It is done in several cases, in two at least with the happiest results. It would be a different thing to throw the whole place open with standing advertisement for eligible members at a salary of, L300 a year, paid quarterly. The horde of impecunious babblers and busybodies attracted by such a bait would trample down the class of men who compose the present House of Commons, and who are, in various ways, at touch with all the multiform interests of the nation.

HATS AND SEATS.

The great hat question which agitated the House of Commons at the commencement of the new Session, even placing Home Rule in a secondary position, has subsided, and will probably not again be heard of during the existence of the present Parliament. Whilst yet to the fore it was discussed with vigour and freshness; but it is no new thing. With the opening Session of every Parliament the activity and curiosity of new members lead to inconvenient crowding of a chamber that was not constructed to seat 670 members. In the early days of the 1880 Parliament the hat threatened to bring about a crisis. One evening Mr. Mitchell Henry startled the House by addressing the Speaker from a side gallery. This of itself was regarded as a breach of order, and many members expected the Speaker would peremptorily interfere. But Mr. Mitchell Henry, an old Parliamentary hand, knew he was within his right in speaking from this unwonted position. The side galleries as far down as the Bar are as much within the House as is the Treasury Bench, and though orators frequenting them would naturally find a difficulty in catching the Speaker's eye, there is no other reason why they should not permanently occupy seats there.

Mr. Mitchell Henry explained that he spoke from this place because he could not find any other. He had come down in ordinarily good time to take his seat, and found all the benches on the floor appropriated by having hats planted out along them. In each hat was fixed a card, indicating the name of the owner. What had first puzzled Mr. Henry, and upon reflection led him to the detection of systematic fraud, was meeting in remote parts of the House, even in the street, members who went about wearing a hat, although what purported to be their headgear was being used to stake out a claim in the Legislative Chamber. Mr. Henry made the suggestion that only what he called "the working hat" should be recognised as an agent in securing a seat.

The strict morality of this arrangement was acquiesced in, and its adoption generally approved. But nothing practical came of it. By-and-by, in the ordinary evolution of things, the pressure of competition for seats died off, and the supernumerary hat disappeared from the scene. This Session the ancient trouble returned with increased force, owing to the peculiar circumstances in which political parties are subdivided. The Irish members insisting upon retaining their old seats below the gangway to the left of the Speaker, there was no room for the Dissentient Liberals to range themselves in their proper quarters on the Opposition side. They, accordingly, moved over with the Liberals, and appropriated two benches below the gangway, thus driving a wedge of hostile force into the very centre of the Ministerial ranks. It was the Radical quarter that was thus invaded, and its occupants were not disposed tamely to submit to the incursion. The position was to be held only by strategy. Hence the historic appearance on the scene on the first day of the Session of Mr. Austen Chamberlain with relays of hats, which he set out along the coveted benches, and so secured them for the sitting. On the other side of the House a similar contest was going forward between the Irish Nationalist members, represented by Dr. Tanner, and their Ulster brethren, who acknowledge a leader in Colonel Saunderson.

These tactics are made possible by the peculiar, indeed unique, arrangement by which seats are secured in the House of Commons. In all other Legislative Assemblies in the world each member has assigned to him a seat and desk, reserved for him as long as he is a member. That would be an impossible arrangement in the House of Commons, for the sufficient reason that while there are 670 duly returned members, there is not sitting room for much more than half the number. When a member of the House of Commons desires to secure a particular seat for a given night he must be in his place at prayer time, which on four days a week is at three o'clock in the afternoon. On the fifth day, Wednesday, prayers are due at noon. At prayer time, and only then, there are obtainable tickets upon which a member may write his name, and, sticking the pasteboard in the brass frame at the back of the seat, is happy for the night.

Where, what Mr. Mitchell Henry called, the non-working hat comes in is in the practice of members gathering before prayer time and placing their hats on the seat they desire to retain. That is a preliminary that receives no official recognition. "No prayer, no seat," is the axiom, and unless a member be actually present in the body when the Chaplain reads prayers, he is not held to have established a claim. Thus his spiritual comfort is subtly and indispensably linked with his material comfort.

A NEW THING IN SYNDICATES.

There is nothing new under the glass roof of the House of Commons, not even the balloting syndicates, of which so much has been heard since the Session opened. Fifteen or sixteen years ago the Irish members astonished everybody by the extraordinary luck that attended them at the ballot. The ballot in this sense has nothing to do with the electoral poll, being the process by which precedence for private members is secured. When a private member has in charge a Bill or resolution, much depends on the opportunity he secures for bringing it forward. Theoretically, Tuesday, Wednesday, and (in vanishing degree) a portion of Friday are appropriated to his use. On Tuesday he may bring on motions; on Wednesday advance Bills; and on Friday raise miscellaneous questions on certain stages of Supply. On days when notices of motion may be given there is set forth on the Table a book with numbered lines, on which members write their names. Say there are fifty names written down--or four hundred, as was the melancholy case on the opening night of the Session--the Clerk at the Table places in a box a corresponding number of slips of paper. When all is ready for the ballot, the Speaker having before him the list of names as written down, the Clerk at the Table plunges his hand into the lucky-box and taking out, at random, one of the pieces of paper, calls aloud the number marked upon it.

Say it is 365. The Speaker, referring to the list he holds in his hand, finds that Mr. Smith has written his name on line 365. He thereupon calls upon Mr. Smith, who has the first chance, and selects what in his opinion is the most favourable day, _ceteris paribus_, the earliest at liberty. So the process goes through till the last paper in the ballot-box has been taken out and the list is closed.

It is at best a wearisome business, a criminal waste of time, useless for practical purposes. It was well enough when Parliament was not overburdened with work, and when the members balloting for places rarely exceeded a score. But when, as happened on the opening day of the Session, two of the freshest hours of the sitting are occupied by the performance, it is felt that a change is desirable. This could easily be effected, there being no reason in the world why the process of balloting for places on the Order Book should not be carried out as was the balloting for places in the Strangers' Galleries on the night Mr. Gladstone introduced his Home Rule Bill. On that occasion the Speaker's Secretary, with the assistance of a clerk, and in the presence of as many members as cared to look on, arranged the ballot without a hitch or a murmur of complaint from anyone concerned. The sooner the public balloting is relegated to the same agency the better it will be for the dispatch of public business. With it should disappear the consequent wanton waste of time involved in members bodily bringing in their Bills, a performance that appropriated nearly half the sitting on the second day of the Session.

The spread of the syndicate contrivance would happily hasten the inevitable end. It was by means of the syndicate, though it was not known by that name, or indeed at first known at all, that the Home Rule party managed in the Parliament of 1880-85 to monopolize the time pertaining to private members. Their quick eyes detected what is simple enough when explained--that the ballot system contained potentialities for increasing the chances of a Bill by twenty or thirty fold. Suppose they had ten Bills or motions they desired to bring forward. They usually had more, but ten is sufficient to contemplate. These were arranged in accordance with their claim to priority. Every member of the party wrote his name down in the ballot-book, thus securing an individual chance at the ballot. Whilst the ballot was in progress, each had in his hand a list of the Bills in their order of priority. The member whose name was first called by the Speaker gave notice of the most urgent Bill, the second and third taking the next favourable positions, and so on to the end.

It will be seen that, supposing fifty or sixty members thus combined, their pet Bill would have fifty or sixty chances to one against the hapless private member with his solitary voice. The secret was long kept, and the Irish members carried everything before them at the ballot. Now the murder is out, and there are almost as many syndicates as there are private Bills. All can grow the flower now, for all have got the seed. But it naturally follows that competition is practically again made even. The advantage to be derived from the syndicate system has appreciably decreased, whilst its practice immeasurably lengthens the process of balloting.

LOUIS JENNINGS.

Mr. Louis Jennings, though he sat on the same side of the House as Sir Walter Barttelot, and within a week or two of his neighbour's departure likewise answered to the old Lobby cry, "Who goes home?" was of a different type of Conservative, was a man of literary training, generous culture, and wide knowledge of the world, and made his fame and fortune long before he entered the House of Commons. It was the late Mr. Delane whose quick eye discovered his journalistic ability, and gave him his first commission on the _Times_. He visited America in the service of that journal, and being there remained to take up the editorship of the _New York Times_, making himself and his journal famous by his successful tilting against what, up to his appearance in the list, had been the invincible Tweed conspiracy. He edited the "Croker Papers," and wrote a "study" of Mr. Gladstone--a bitterly clever book, to which the Premier magnanimously referred in the generous tribute he took occasion to pay to the memory of the late member for Stockport.

Upon these two books Mr. Jennings's literary fame in this country chiefly rests. It would stand much higher if there were wider knowledge of another couple of volumes he wrote just before he threw himself into the turmoil of Parliamentary life. One is called "Field Paths and Green Lanes"; the other "Rambles Among the Hills." Both were published by Mr. Murray, and are now, I believe, out of print. They are well worth reproducing, supplying some of the most charming writing I know, full of shrewd observation, humorous fancy, and a deep, abiding sympathy with all that is beautiful in Nature. I thought I knew Louis Jennings pretty intimately in Parliamentary and social life, but I found a new man hidden in these pages--a beautiful, sunny nature, obscured in the ordinary relations of life by a somewhat brusque manner, and in these last eighteen months soured and cramped by a cruel disease. Jennings knew and loved the country as Gilbert White knew and loved Selborne. Now

His part in all the pomp that fills
The circuit of the summer hills
Is, that his grave is green.

His Parliamentary career was checked, and, as it turned out, finally destroyed, by an untoward incident. After Lord Randolph Churchill threw up the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and assumed a position of independence on a back bench, he found an able lieutenant in his old friend Louis Jennings. At that time Lord Randolph was feared on the Treasury Bench as much as he was hated. For a Conservative member to associate himself with him was to be ostracised by the official Conservatives. A man of Mr. Jennings's position and Parliamentary ability was worth buying off, and it was brought to his knowledge that he might have a good price if he would desert Lord Randolph. He was not a man of that kind, and the fact that the young statesman stood almost alone was sufficient to attract Mr. Jennings to his side.

Up to an early date of the Session of 1890 the companionship, political and private, of Lord Randolph Churchill and Mr. Jennings was as intimate as had been any one of his lordship's personal connections with members of the Fourth Party. This alliance was ruptured under circumstances that took place publicly, but the undercurrent of which has never been fathomed. One Monday night, shortly after the opening of this Session of 1890, there appeared on the paper a resolution standing in the name of Mr. Jennings, framed in terms not calculated to smooth the path of the Conservative Government, just then particularly troubled. That Mr. Jennings had prepared it in consultation with Lord Randolph Churchill was an open secret. Indeed, Lord Randolph had undertaken to second it. Before the motion could be reached a debate sprang up, in which Lord Randolph interposed, and delivered a speech which, in Mr. Jennings's view, entirely cut the ground from under his feet. He regarded this as more than an affront--as a breach of faith, a blow dealt by his own familiar friend. At that moment, in the House, he broke with Lord Randolph, tore up his amendment and the notes of his speech, and declined thereafter to hold any communion with his old friend.

No one, as I had opportunity of learning at the time, was more surprised than Lord Randolph Churchill at the view taken of the event by Mr. Jennings. He had not thought of his action being so construed, and had certainly been guiltless of the motive attributed to him. There was somewhere and somehow a misunderstanding. With Mr. Jennings it was strong and bitter enough to last through what remained of his life.

Whilst he did not act upon the first impulse communicated to one of his friends, and forthwith retire from public life, he with this incident lost all zest for it. Occasionally he spoke, choosing the level, unattractive field of the Civil Service Estimates. It was a high tribute to his power and capacity that on the few occasions when he spoke the House filled up, not only with the contingent attracted by the prospect of anything spicy, but by grave, financial authorities, Ministers and ex-Ministers, who listened attentively to his acute criticism. His public speaking benefited by a rare combination of literary style and oratorical aptitude. There was no smell of the lamp about his polished, pungent sentences. But they had the unmistakable mark of literary style. Had his physical strength not failed, and his life not been embittered by the episode alluded to, Louis Jennings would have risen to high position in the Parliamentary field.

_Portraits of Celebrities at Different Times of their Lives._

MRS. BROWN-POTTER.

_From a Photo. by Levitsky, Paris._]

_From a Photo. by Elmer & Chickering, Boston._]

_From a Photo. by Filk, Sydney._]

_From a Photo. by Warneuke, Glasgow._]

Cora Urquhart Potter was born in Louisiana, her father being Scotch and her mother partly Mexican. She was educated by her mother, and taught to act and recite from babyhood, her mother making her play on all occasions such as birthdays and Christmas. Her first appearance before friends was at the age of five years. She was married at seventeen. She never spoke English until fourteen, speaking entirely French and Spanish, She played all over the States as an amateur, and when the occasion came, and she was thrown on her own resources, she adopted the stage as a profession. She has played in every country and city where the English language is spoken. Mrs. Potter has, perhaps, the largest _repertoire_ of any living actress.

H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES. BORN 1841.

_From a Painting by F. Winterhalter._]

_From a Photo. by Mayall._]

_From a Photo. by W. & D. Downey._]

_From a Photo. by W. & D. Downey._]

_From a Photo. by W. & D. Downey._]

The article on the home life of the Prince and Princess of Wales which we have the privilege of publishing in this number lends additional interest to the portraits of their Royal Highnesses at different ages. The accompanying portraits of the Prince represent him in his nursery; as an Oxford undergraduate; in Highland costume; in the uniform of a Colonel of the Royal Horse Guards (Blues); and finally, in an excellent likeness, at the present day.

THE PRINCESS OF WALES.

_From a Photo. by Hansen, Copenhagen._]

_From a Photo. by Bingham, Paris._]

(With the DUKE OF YORK as a Baby.)

_From a Photo. by W. & D. Downey._]

_From a Photo. by Lafayette, Dublin._]

_From a Photo. by W. & D. Downey._]

Our first portrait of the Princess of Wales was taken in her native city nearly two years before her arrival in England; the second was taken at the time of her marriage; the third when her second son, the present Duke of York, was about a year old; and the fourth in her robes as Doctor of Music of the Royal University of Ireland in 1885. The difference in the fashion of the dresses in these portraits is striking, but not more so than the beauty of the Princess.

THE REV. S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.

BORN 1834.

_From a Miniature._]

_From a Drawing._]

_From a Photo. by Hall, Wakefield._]

_From a Photo. by Barnes, Colchester._]

_From a Photo. by W. & D. Downey._]

The Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, who has of late years won world-wide popularity as the writer of "Mehalah," "John Herring," and many other novels, was born at Exeter, and is the eldest son of Mr. Edward Baring-Gould, of Lew-Trenchard, Devon, where the family has resided for nearly 300 years, and of which place he is now the Rector. He is also Justice of the Peace for the County of Devon. He had written on various subjects of historical research before he took to novel-writing.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD.

BORN 1846.

_From a Photograph._]

_From a Photograph._]

_From a Photo. by Dickinson & Foster._]

_From a Photo. by Merlin, Athens._]

Lord Charles Beresford, son of the Marquis of Waterford, entered the Royal Navy at thirteen, served on several warships, and accompanied the Prince of Wales to India, in 1875, as Naval _Aide-de-Camp_. At the bombardment of Alexandria he was in command of the gunboat _Condor_, and his gallant conduct in bearing down on the Marabout batteries and silencing guns immensely superior to his own was so conspicuous that the Admiral's ship signalled: "Well done, _Condor_!" In 1884 he assisted Lord Wolseley in the Nile Expedition.

JOHN ROBERTS.

BORN 1847.

_From a Photograph._]

_From a Photograph._]

_From a Photograph by Whitlock, Birmingham._]

_From a Photo. by Alerts, Bombay._]

John Roberts, the finest billiard player the world has ever seen, was born at Ardwick, Manchester. He commenced his career as a billiard player very early in life, for when only a child of eleven he assisted his father at the George Hotel, in Liverpool, his father at the time being universally considered the best in England, and, consequently, we find that he had in early life the very best model from which to study the game. Some thirty years ago, when Roberts's father was champion, a break of over 200 was a rare event, whereas now it is an every day occurrence with third-rate players. Roberts's highest all-round break is 3,000. His superiority to those who rank next to him is unprecedented, as evinced by his recent victory over Peall, to whom he gave 9,000 in 24,000. Roberts's style is simply perfect, and it is wonderful to watch the various strokes during a long break, consisting as they do of some requiring great execution and power of cue, and others showing the utmost delicacy of touch.

_The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes._

XVII.--THE ADVENTURE OF THE "GLORIA SCOTT."

BY A. CONAN DOYLE.

"I have some papers here," said my friend, Sherlock Holmes, as we sat one winter's night on either side of the fire, "which I really think, Watson, it would be worth your while to glance over. These are the documents in the extraordinary case of the _Gloria Scott_, and this is the message which struck Justice of the Peace Trevor dead with horror when he read it."

He had picked from a drawer a little tarnished cylinder, and, undoing the tape, he handed me a short note scrawled upon a half sheet of slate-grey paper.

"The supply of game for London is going steadily up," it ran. "Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly-paper, and for preservation of your hen pheasant's life."

As I glanced up from reading this enigmatical message I saw Holmes chuckling at the expression upon my face.

"You look a little bewildered," said he.

"I cannot see how such a message as this could inspire horror. It seems to me to be rather grotesque than otherwise."

"Very likely. Yet the fact remains that the reader, who was a fine, robust old man, was knocked clean down by it, as if it had been the butt-end of a pistol."

"You arouse my curiosity," said I. "But why did you say just now that there were very particular reasons why I should study this case?"

"Because it was the first in which I was ever engaged."

I had often endeavoured to elicit from my companion what had first turned his mind in the direction of criminal research, but I had never caught him before in a communicative humour. Now he sat forward in his armchair, and spread out the documents upon his knees. Then he lit his pipe and sat for some time smoking and turning them over.

"You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?" he asked. "He was the only friend I made during the two years that I was at college. I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed much with the men of my year. Bar fencing and boxing I had few athletic tastes, and then my line of study was quite distinct from that of the other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at all. Trevor was the only man I knew, and that only through the accident of his bull-terrier freezing on to my ankle one morning as I went down to chapel.

"It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it was effective. I was laid by the heels for ten days, and Trevor used to come in to inquire after me. At first it was only a minute's chat, but soon his visits lengthened, and before the end of the term we were close friends. He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirits and energy, the very opposite to me in most respects; but we found we had some subjects in common, and it was a bond of union when I found that he was as friendless as I. Finally, he invited me down to his father's place at Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I accepted his hospitality for a month of the long vacation.

"Old Trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and consideration, a J.P. and a landed proprietor. Donnithorpe is a little hamlet just to the north of Langmere, in the country of the Broads. The house was an old-fashioned, wide-spread, oak-beamed, brick building, with a fine lime-lined avenue leading up to it. There was excellent wild duck shooting in the fens, remarkably good fishing, a small but select library, taken over, as I understood, from a former occupant, and a tolerable cook, so that it would be a fastidious man who could not put in a pleasant month there.

"Trevor senior was a widower, and my friend was his only son. There had been a daughter, I heard, but she had died of diphtheria while on a visit to Birmingham. The father interested me extremely. He was a man of little culture, but with a considerable amount of rude strength both physically and mentally. He knew hardly any books, but he had travelled far, had seen much of the world, and had remembered all that he had learned. In person he was a thick-set, burly man, with a shock of grizzled hair, a brown, weather-beaten face, and blue eyes which were keen to the verge of fierceness. Yet he had a reputation for kindness and charity on the country side, and was noted for the leniency of his sentences from the bench.

"One evening, shortly after my arrival, we were sitting over a glass of port after dinner, when young Trevor began to talk about those habits of observation and inference which I had already formed into a system, although I had not yet appreciated the part which they were to play in my life. The old man evidently thought that his son was exaggerating in his description of one or two trivial feats which I had performed.

"'Come now, Mr. Holmes,' said he, laughing good-humouredly, 'I'm an excellent subject, if you can deduce anything from me.'

"'I fear there is not very much,' I answered. 'I might suggest that you have gone about in fear of some personal attack within the last twelve months.'

"The laugh faded from his lips and he stared at me in great surprise.

"'Well, that's true enough,' said he. 'You know, Victor,' turning to his son, 'when we broke up that poaching gang, they swore to knife us; and Sir Edward Hoby has actually been attacked. I've always been on my guard since then, though I have no idea how you know it.'

"'You have a very handsome stick,' I answered. 'By the inscription, I observed that you had not had it more than a year. But you have taken some pains to bore the head of it and pour melted lead into the hole, so as to make it a formidable weapon. I argued that you would not take such precautions unless you had some danger to fear.'

"'Anything else?' he asked, smiling.

"'You have boxed a good deal in your youth.'

"'Right again. How did you know it? Is my nose knocked a little out of the straight?'

"'No,' said I. 'It is your ears. They have the peculiar flattening and thickening which marks the boxing man.'

"'Anything else?'

"'You have done a great deal of digging, by your callosities.'

"'Made all my money at the gold-fields.'

"'You have been in New Zealand.'

"'Right again.'

"'You have visited Japan.'

"'Quite true.'

"'And you have been most intimately associated with someone whose initials were J. A., and whom you afterwards were eager to entirely forget.'

"Mr. Trevor stood slowly up, fixed his large blue eyes upon me with a strange, wild stare, and then pitched forward with his face among the nutshells which strewed the cloth, in a dead faint.

"You can imagine, Watson, how shocked both his son and I were. His attack did not last long, however, for when we undid his collar and sprinkled the water from one of the finger-glasses over his face, he gave a gasp or two and sat up.

"'Ah, boys!' said he, forcing a smile. 'I hope I haven't frightened you. Strong as I look, there is a weak place in my heart, and it does not take much to knock me over. I don't know how you manage this, Mr. Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of fancy would be children in your hands. That's your line of life, sir, and you may take the word of a man who has seen something of the world.'

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby. At the moment, however, I was too much concerned at the sudden illness of my host to think of anything else.

"'I hope that I have said nothing to pain you,' said I.

"'Well, you certainly touched upon rather a tender point. Might I ask how you know and how much you know?' He spoke now in a half jesting fashion, but a look of terror still lurked at the back of his eyes.

"'It is simplicity itself,' said I. 'When you bared your arm to draw that fish into the boat I saw that "J. A." had been tattooed in the bend of the elbow. The letters were still legible, but it was perfectly clear from their blurred appearance, and from the staining of the skin round them, that efforts had been made to obliterate them. It was obvious, then, that those initials had once been very familiar to you, and that you had afterwards wished to forget them.'

"'What an eye you have!' he cried, with a sigh of relief. 'It is just as you say. But we won't talk of it. Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old loves are the worst. Come into the billiard-room and have a quiet cigar.'

"From that day, amid all his cordiality, there was always a touch of suspicion in Mr. Trevor's manner towards me. Even his son remarked it. 'You've given the governor such a turn,' said he, 'that he'll never be sure again of what you know and what you don't know.' He did not mean to show it, I am sure, but it was so strongly in his mind that it peeped out at every action. At last I became so convinced that I was causing him uneasiness, that I drew my visit to a close. On the very day, however, before I left an incident occurred which proved in the sequel to be of importance.

"We were sitting out upon the lawn on garden chairs, the three of us, basking in the sun and admiring the view across the Broads, when the maid came out to say that there was a man at the door who wanted to see Mr. Trevor.

"'What is his name?' asked my host.

"'He would not give any.'

"'What does he want, then?'

"'He says that you know him, and that he only wants a moment's conversation.'

"'Show him round here.' An instant afterwards there appeared a little wizened fellow, with a cringing manner and a shambling style of walking. He wore an open jacket, with a splotch of tar on the sleeve, a red and black check shirt, dungaree trousers, and heavy boots badly worn. His face was thin and brown and crafty, with a perpetual smile upon it, which showed an irregular line of yellow teeth, and his crinkled hands were half-closed in a way that is distinctive of sailors. As he came slouching across the lawn I heard Mr. Trevor make a sort of hiccoughing noise in his throat, and, jumping out of his chair, he ran into the house. He was back in a moment, and I smelt a strong reek of brandy as he passed me.

"'Well, my man,' said he, 'what can I do for you?'

"The sailor stood looking at him with puckered eyes, and with the same loose-lipped smile upon his face.

"'You don't know me?' he asked.

"'Why, dear me, it is surely Hudson!' said Mr. Trevor, in a tone of surprise.

"'Hudson it is, sir,' said the seaman. 'Why, it's thirty year and more since I saw you last. Here you are in your house, and me still picking my salt meat out of the harness cask.'

"'Tut, you will find that I have not forgotten old times,' cried Mr. Trevor, and, walking towards the sailor, he said something in a low voice. 'Go into the kitchen,' he continued out loud, 'and you will get food and drink. I have no doubt that I shall find you a situation.'

"'Thank you, sir,' said the seaman, touching his forelock. 'I'm just off a two-yearer in an eight-knot tramp, short-handed at that, and I wants a rest. I thought I'd get it either with Mr. Beddoes or with you.'

"'Ah!' cried Mr. Trevor, 'you know where Mr. Beddoes is?'

"'Bless you, sir, I know where all my old friends are,' said the fellow, with a sinister smile, and slouched off after the maid to the kitchen. Mr. Trevor mumbled something to us about having been shipmates with the man when he was going back to the diggings, and then, leaving us on the lawn, he went indoors. An hour later, when we entered the house we found him stretched dead drunk upon the dining-room sofa. The whole incident left a most ugly impression upon my mind, and I was not sorry next day to leave Donnithorpe behind me, for I felt that my presence must be a source of embarrassment to my friend.

"All this occurred during the first month of the long vacation. I went up to my London rooms, where I spent seven weeks working out a few experiments in organic chemistry. One day, however, when the autumn was far advanced and the vacation drawing to a close, I received a telegram from my friend imploring me to return to Donnithorpe, and saying that he was in great need of my advice and assistance. Of course I dropped everything, and set out for the north once more.

"He met me with the dog-cart at the station, and I saw at a glance that the last two months had been very trying ones for him. He had grown thin and careworn, and had lost the loud, cheery manner for which he had been remarkable.

"'The governor is dying,' were the first words he said.

"'Impossible!' I cried. 'What is the matter?'

"'Apoplexy. Nervous shock. He's been on the verge all day. I doubt if we shall find him alive.'

"I was, as you may think, Watson, horrified at this unexpected news.

"'What has caused it?' I asked.

"'Ah, that is the point. Jump in, and we can talk it over while we drive. You remember that fellow who came upon the evening before you left us?'

"'Perfectly.'

"'Do you know who it was that we let into the house that day?'

"'I have no idea.'

"'It was the Devil, Holmes!' he cried.

"I stared at him in astonishment.

"'Yes; it was the Devil himself. We have not had a peaceful hour since--not one. The governor has never held up his head from that evening, and now the life has been crushed out of him, and his heart broken all through this accursed Hudson.'

"'What power had he, then?'

"'Ah! that is what I would give so much to know. The kindly, charitable, good old governor! How could he have fallen into the clutches of such a ruffian? But I am so glad that you have come, Holmes. I trust very much to your judgment and discretion, and I know that you will advise me for the best.'

"We were dashing along the smooth, white country road, with the long stretch of the Broads in front of us glimmering in the red light of the setting sun. From a grove upon our left I could already see the high chimneys and the flagstaff which marked the squire's dwelling.

"'My father made the fellow gardener,' said my companion, 'and then, as that did not satisfy him, he was promoted to be butler. The house seemed to be at his mercy, and he wandered about and did what he chose in it. The maids complained of his drunken habits and his vile language. The dad raised their wages all round to recompense them for the annoyance. The fellow would take the boat and my father's best gun and treat himself to little shooting parties. And all this with such a sneering, leering, insolent face, that I would have knocked him down twenty times over if he had been a man of my own age. I tell you, Holmes, I have had to keep a tight hold upon myself all this time, and now I am asking myself whether, if I had let myself go a little more, I might not have been a wiser man.

"'Well, matters went from bad to worse with us, and this animal, Hudson, became more and more intrusive, until at last, on his making some insolent reply to my father in my presence one day, I took him by the shoulder and turned him out of the room. He slunk away with a livid face, and two venomous eyes which uttered more threats than his tongue could do. I don't know what passed between the poor dad and him after that, but the dad came to me next day and asked me whether I would mind apologizing to Hudson. I refused, as you can imagine, and asked my father how he could allow such a wretch to take such liberties with himself and his household.

"'Ah, my boy,' said he, 'it is all very well to talk, but you don't know how I am placed. But you shall know, Victor. I'll see that you shall know, come what may! You wouldn't believe harm of your poor old father, would you, lad?' He was very much moved, and shut himself up in the study all day, where I could see through the window that he was writing busily.

"'That evening there came what seemed to me to be a grand release, for Hudson told us that he was going to leave us. He walked into the dining-room as we sat after dinner, and announced his intention in the thick voice of a half-drunken man.

"'I've had enough of Norfolk,' said he. 'I'll run down to Mr. Beddoes, in Hampshire. He'll be as glad to see me as you were, I daresay.'

"'You're not going away in an unkind spirit, Hudson, I hope,' said my father, with a tameness which made my blood boil.

"'I've not had my 'pology," said he, sulkily, glancing in my direction.

"'Victor, you will acknowledge that you have used this worthy fellow rather roughly?' said the dad, turning to me.

"'On the contrary, I think that we have both shown extraordinary patience towards him,' I answered.

"'Oh, you do, do you?' he snarled. 'Very good, mate. We'll see about that!' He slouched out of the room, and half an hour afterwards left the house, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervousness. Night after night I heard him pacing his room, and it was just as he was recovering his confidence that the blow did at last fall.

"'And how?' I asked, eagerly.

"'In a most extraordinary fashion. A letter arrived for my father yesterday evening, bearing the Fordingbridge postmark. My father read it, clapped both his hands to his head and began running round the room in little circles like a man who has been driven out of his senses. When I at last drew him down on to the sofa, his mouth and eyelids were all puckered on one side, and I saw that he had a stroke. Dr. Fordham came over at once, and we put him to bed; but the paralysis has spread, he has shown no sign of returning consciousness, and I think that we shall hardly find him alive.'

"'You horrify me, Trevor!' I cried. 'What, then, could have been in this letter to cause so dreadful a result?'

"'Nothing. There lies the inexplicable part of it. The message was absurd and trivial. Ah, my God, it is as I feared!'

"As he spoke we came round the curve of the avenue, and saw in the fading light that every blind in the house had been drawn down. As we dashed up to the door, my friend's face convulsed with grief, a gentleman in black emerged from it.

"'When did it happen, doctor?' asked Trevor.

"'Almost immediately after you left.'

"'Did he recover consciousness?'

"'For an instant before the end.'

"'Any message for me?'

"'Only that the papers were in the back drawer of the Japanese cabinet.'