Fortified by the inspiring example of Mr. Upton Sinclair, who recently
picketed the offices of the Standard Oil Company in New York with a view
to bringing pressure to bear on Mr. John Rockefeller, Junr., Mr. Alf.
Abel, the famous Manx novelist, has adopted similar measures to bring
Mr. Andrew Carnegie to reason. The trouble is of long standing and has
grown out of the movement inaugurated by Mr. Abel to induce
municipalities and local authorities to refuse the gifts of Free
Libraries. Such benefactions, as Mr. Abel has most conclusively shown,
while nominally intended to educate the masses, in reality have the
result of restricting the sale and circulation of those works of fiction
which conduce most effectively to the culture, the intellectual
emancipation and the moral uplift of the nation. Worse still, they
reduce the legitimate emoluments which the authors of these noble works
derive from their beneficent labours. Owing to this pernicious system
the number of copies sold of Mr. Abel's last work only readied 250,000
copies, instead of 400,000, as he and his publisher, Mr. Goethemann,
confidently expected. Mr. Abel has memorialised the Prime Minister, but
without effect, and at last determined to take decisive action himself.
Accordingly, having chartered a swift steamer manned by Manx fishermen,
and carrying 500 volunteers wearing the national uniform, Mr. Abel set
out from Douglas (I. of M.) on Wednesday last and, landing in the
neighbourhood of Dornoch on Friday night, advanced early next morning on
Skibo Castle, the seat of Mr. Carnegie.
The famous millionaire, who is an early riser, was playing the organ in
the central hall of the Castle when he was apprised of the approach of
the raiders by one of his retinue, and at once determined to organise a
stubborn resistance. The portcullis was let down, the moat filled to its
utmost capacity, while Winchester rifles were served out to the four
butlers, sixteen footmen, seven chauffeurs and twenty-four gardeners who
compose the staff. The organist was instructed to play martial music to
hearten the defenders, while Mr. Carnegie took up his position in the
bomb-proof gazebo which is so prominent a feature in the Sutherland
landscape. Meantime Mr. Abel, advancing at the head of his volunteers,
had taken cover behind an Araucaria and addressed an ultimatum to Mr.
Carnegie through a megaphone. It was to the effect that unless he
promised to forbid the supply of Mr. Abel's novels to his Free
Libraries, Mr. Abel would--
(1) Let loose 1,000 Manx cats in Mr. Carnegie's preserves;
(2) Permanently establish himself in the neighbourhood of Skibo and
follow Mr. Carnegie about wherever he went, in Elizabethan costume;
(3) Make Mr. Carnegie the villain of his next novel;
(4) Give free recitations from his works in Dornoch and the
neighbourhood.
The situation was extremely critical when Mr. Jenery Hames, the
illustrious American novelist, who was staying with Mr. Carnegie,
gallantly offered his services as a mediator, and, sallying forth under
a flag of truce, entered into negotiations with Mr. Abel. After a
protracted interview a _via media_ was reached by which, while Mr.
Carnegie undertook to exclude Mr. Abel's works from his Free Libraries,
Mr. Abel agreed to withdraw his threat of coming to reside in
Sutherlandshire on the understanding that Mr. Jenery Hames contributed a
six-column appreciation of Mr. Abel's works to _The Times_, provided
that the demands of golf on the best pages of that journal permitted it.
Subsequently Mr. Carnegie entertained the Manx Volunteers at a sumptuous
_déjeuner_, at which Mr. Hames proposed the health of Mr. Abel and Mr.
Abel fell on the neck of Mr. Hames. No other casualties occurred to mar
the peaceful termination of what might have proved an international
catastrophe.
* * * * *
"Its author could no longer look forward with 3/8 his old hope
or confidence to a continued successful resistance to Home
Rule."
_Manchester Guardian._
"Half his old hope" a less meticulous speaker would have said.
* * * * *
"The defendants were ordered to pay the costs, but the Chairman
(Mr. T. J. Price) remarked that if such breeches were repeated
the magistrates would have to adopt sterner measures."--_South
Wales Daily News._
We hope this will be a warning to our nuts.
* * * * *