A famous story tells how a heckler once broke up a Liberal meeting by
asking with raucous iteration, "What did Mr. GLADSTONE say in 1878?" or
whatever year it was. Nobody knew, and neither did the inquirer himself,
but uproar followed and his end was achieved. Now had the question run,
"What did Mr. GLADSTONE do?" how different a result! For Mr. GLADSTONE,
apart from any trifles of statesmanship or legislation, did two priceless
things, as I will show.
Although, writes the Returned Traveller who in our last number was so
unhappy about the deterioration that has come upon taxi-drivers, I left
England only in October last, I find it a changed place; but no change, not
even the iniquitous prices demanded by London's restaurateurs, or the
increased darkness, or the queer division of _hors d'oeuvres_ into
half-courses and whole-courses (providing an answer at last to the pathetic
query, "What is a sardine?" "A whole course, of course")--no change is so
striking as the fact that when a paper now refers to the PRIME MINISTER or
the PREMIER, it means no longer HERBERT HENRY but DAVID. In a world of flux
and mutability I had come to think of Mr. ASQUITH as a rock, a pyramid, a
pole-star. But, alas! even he was subject to alteration.
Thinking earnestly upon his career I have realised bow sad it is that he
has bequeathed us no ASQUITH legend. Always reserved and intent, he
discouraged Press gossip to such a degree as actually to have turned the
key on the Tenth Muse. Everybody else might lunch at the hospitable board
in Downing Street, but interviewers had no chance. In vain did the Quexes
of this frivolous city hope for even a crumb--there was nothing for them.
Mr. ASQUITH came into office, held it, and left it without a single
concession to Demos's love of personalia. He did not even wear comic
collars or white hats or a single eyeglass or any other grotesquely
significant thing; and how much poorer are we in consequence and how much
poorer will posterity be!
Contrast the case of Mr. GLADSTONE, from whom anyone could draw a postcard
and most people a chip of some recently-felled tree, and who is in my mind
wonderful and supreme by reason of two inventions which, though no one
would ever guess them to be the result of a Prime Minister's cogitations,
deserve the widest fame. Of these one was the product of his unaided
genius; the other the result of the collaboration with his wife.
Let us begin with the individual triumph.
Everyone who has ever stayed under anyone else's roof, from a
dine-and-sleep at Windsor Castle to a week in lovely Lucerne, has been
confronted, when packing-up time arrived, with the problem of the sponge.
No matter how muscular the fingers that wring this article, no matter how
thick and costly the rubbered receptacle that holds it, there is always the
chance of dampness communicating itself to other things in the bag. Isn't
there?
How so to squeeze the sponge as to drive out the last drop of moisture was
the problem before the massive intellect of the Grand Old Man. Need I say
that he solved it? His method, as he himself in his unselfish way, told one
of the diarists, possibly Sir M.E. GRANT-DUFF, possibly Mr. G.W.E.
RUSSELL--I forget whom--was to wrap up the sponge in a bath-towel and jump
on it. Here, for the historical painter, is a theme indeed--something worth
all the ordinary dull occasions which provoke his talented if somewhat
staid brush: the great Liberal statesman, the promoter of Home Rule, the
author of _The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture_, leaping upon the
bath-towel that held his sponge. But no historical painter could do justice
to such a scene. It needs the movies.
Those of us then who dry our sponges in this way--and I am a fervent
devotee--owe the inventor a meed of praise. And equally those of us who put
into our hot water bottles at night hot tea instead of hot water (as I
never have done and never mean to do), so that, waking in the small hours,
we may yet not be without refreshment, owe a meed of praise to the same
inspired innovator, for, if the chroniclers are correct, it was Mrs.
GLADSTONE'S habit to retire to rest with a bottle thus nutritiously filled,
which would be ready for her great man on his return from the House weary
and athirst.
Here we see the difference between Liberal Premiers. For what has Mr.
ASQUITH done towards the solution of domestic problems? Who can name a
thing? Has he devised a collar stud that cannot be lost? Has he hit upon a
way instantly to stop a shaving cut from bleeding? Has he contrived a taxi
window that will open when shut or shut when open? No. In all these years
he has spared no time for any inventions.
No wonder then that he was found wanting and forced to resign.
* * * * *
A Scot among the Cynics.
"The railway fares are being raised, we are told, to stop pleasure
travelling, but it can hardly be imagined that a munition worker going
home to spend his week-end with his family is bent on pleasure."--
_Glasgow Evening News_.
* * * * *
"Beautiful set of civic cat; very large stole and muff; accept
£12."--_The Lady_.
As DICK WHITTINGTON'S mascot is the only civic cat known to history we
think the relic should be secured for the Guildhall Museum.
* * * * *
"Simply as a citizen and as a non-party man, I want to say that Mr.
Asquith has my affection and respect--and that is the highest guerdon
that any statesman can have."--_Extract from Letter in Yorkshire
Paper_.
We know now why Mr. ASQUITH refused a peerage. He did not want to vex his
modest admirer.
* * * * *
"At Caxton Hall the conference was resumed of municipal authorities
interested in the conversation of old fruit, sardine and salmon
tins."--_Birmingham Daily Mail_.
We ourselves always listen with pleasure to their talk. It has at once a
fruity and a fishy flavour.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Gentleman_ (_In favour of national work for everyone_).
"AND WHY SHOULDN'T PEOPLE BE DOING TO-DAY WHAT THEY NEVER DREAMED OF DOING
BEFORE THE WAR?"
_New Assistant_ (_his first operation_). "EXACTLY, SIR. ALL THE SAME, IF
ANYBODY HAD TOLD ME TWO DAYS AGO THAT I SHOULD NOW BE CUTTING THE HAIR OF A
COMPLETE STRANGER, I'D NEVER HAVE BELIEVED 'IM."]