R D B S Diary

R.D.B.'s
DIARY

ANDHRA PRADESH OPEN UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

*'

Call NoJ . Accession No.

This book should be returned fin or oerore the bate last
marked below:

Copyright

Barraft's Photo Press, Ltd.

R. D. B. 's

D i A ' 7 '

1887 1914
R. D. BLUMENFELD

LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD

First Published. April, 1930
New Impression, June 1930

Printed in Great Britain

at the Windmill Press, Kingswood.

Surrey

I LLUSTRATIONS

Facing Pag*

R. D. BLUMENFELD Frontispiece

H. M. QUEEN VICTORIA IN JUNE 1887 WHEN SHE

CELEBRATED HER JUBILEE 1 6

MR. GLADSTONE LISTENING FOR THE NUMBERS OF
A DIVISION ON WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE FROM

BEHIND THE SPEAKER^ CHAIR, IN 1 892 60

SUFFRAGETTES AT THE ALBERT HALL: MISS OGSTON,
ARMED WITH A DOG WHIP, BEING VIOLENTLY
EJECTED FROM A MEETING ADDRESSED BY
MR. LLOYD GEORGE 200

THE EVOLUTION OF SPEED! A SKETCH MADE IN
IQIO ON BARNES BRIDGE WHEN MR. GRAHAM-
WHITE APPEARED IN FULL FLIGHT, FOR THE
FIRST TIME 230

ERRATA

Page 99: For October 1900 read October 1902. This entry
should have followed that for June 24th, 1902, on
page 194.

Also page 99 line 23 : for eight read ten.

INTRODUCTION

JL HE extracts from my Diary, which 1 pre-
sent herewith, range across twenty-seven years
from the date of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee
in 1887 to August 4, 1914, the day on which
War was declared between Great Britain and
Germany.

The time which I have chosen for extracts
marks a notable period when vast changes took
place in every phase of life. It encompasses the
beginning in this country of the telephone age,
the typewriter, the motor car, and wireless. The
Victorian era was more closely akin to the century
that had gone before than to the one that was to
follow. London presented a daily pageant, and
the contrasts between rich and poor, the great
folk of Society and politics and the " classes "
were distinct and unmistakable.

I have found it necessary here and there to
delete passages, since many of my contem-
poraries of thirty and forty years ago are still
flourishing, and some people have prejudices
about being quoted in print. Also for the sake of
lucidity, particularly to the present generation,

INTRODUCTION

I have here and there " edited " my notes. I may
add that I made entries in my book nightly for
years, no matter how late or how fatigued I was ;
until it became a routine of life which it was
difficult to break. Indeed, it was only due to a
long sojourn in a nursing home in 1922 that I
gave up my Diary.

The quotations in this volume are ended in
August, 1914. I thought it best to leave the War
period to others or else to postpone it for a later
volume,

R. D. BLUMENFELD.

London, January, 1930.

viii

R.D.B. 9 s DIARY

Tuesday, June 21, 1887.

Wonderful day for Queen Victoria's Golden
Jubilee celebration. I spent most of last night
wandering through the streets to observe the
decorations and preliminary illuminations. The
gas-lit streets looked brilliant. Holborn, which
with great enterprise, has electric street lighting,
particularly attractive ; walked from the Inns of
Court Hotel in Holborn at eight o'clock this
morning in order to take up my place in the
window at the foot of Haymarket, opposite Her
Majesty's Opera House [now Carlton Hotel],
but the crowd was so dense that I could get no
further than Waterloo Place, facing my window,
and there I was stuck in the heat until long be-
yond noon after the procession had passed. I
climbed up the statue of King George, but could
not maintain myself and came down. But I got
a good view of most of the procession. The
Queen's face was hidden from me by a sun-
shade. The crowd round me seemed to be much
interested in a dour-faced, heavily-kilted royal
gillie, who sat behind. He looked unperturbed
and rather grim. A good many onlookers mis-
took him for the famous John Brown, but he died
some years ago.

RJ).B.'s DIARY

I thought the German Crown Prince
[Emperor Frederick], in his silver helmet and
shining cuirass, the most striking figure in the
procession. The young Princes, Edward [Duke
of Clarence] and George [King George V.], were
a popular feature in their naval uniforms. It
was my first glimpse of some of the Ministers. I
had never seen Lord Herschell, the Lord Chan-
cellor, Lord Randolph Churchill, Lord Knuts-
ford, Mr. Matthews, the Home Secretary, nor
Lord Spencer, who is generally known as the Red
Earl by virtue of his enormous red beard.

In the crowd beside me stood George Giddens,
an actor who is appearing at the Criterion Theatre
with Mr. Charles Wyndham in David Garrick.
He knew every one in the procession, and I was
not obliged to refer to my programme sheet.
Giddens had been invited to sit in a window of
the Opera House, but could not reach it. I
recognized one of the lucky ones in a window
of the steamship office where I had also taken a
place. This fortunate one who had come earlier
was Mr. James G. Elaine, the American Secre-
tary of State, the famous " plumed knight," who
would have been President but for the disastrous
phrase: "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion,"
which an ardent supporter of his launched
against the Democratic Party, and so lost the
Roman Catholic vote to Mr. Elaine.

I drove round London to-night in a curricle
with Walter Winans inspecting the fireworks. I

JUNE, 1887

have never seen so many people ; certainly never
so many drunken ones.

Wednesday, June 22, 1887.

" Buffalo Bill " Cody is showing his Wild West
at Earl's Court. He is living in rooms at 86,
Regent Street, over Hope Brothers' shop, and
there he finds himself embarrassed by an over-
whelming mass of flowers which come hourly
from hosts of female admirers. He has had an
astonishing success, both " artistically " and
socially, and can now wear evening dress and
adjust a white tie with as much skill as he could
skin a buffalo calf twenty years ago. He is
possessed of a sense of humour too, and laughs
at himself as well as at the snobs who are attracted
by his titles and his prairie hair.

His mantel-shelf is covered with invitations to
" Colonel the Honourable W. F. Cody." Little
do they know that the highest Army rank he ever
held was that of scout-sergeant, and that the
" colonel " was bestowed on him by the Governor
of Nebraska when he made Bill a member of his
local staff: while the " honourable " comes from
his term as member of the Nebraska State Legis-
lature, which is something like the Essex County
Council. They all take the title of " honourable."
Bill is modest and unassuming. He told me to-
day: "Pve been readin* about Bret Harte and
Tom Thumb the dwarf, how they were lionised

3

R.D.B/S DIARY

here for a while, but only while there was excite-
ment about 'em ; so I'm taking no chances."

Am asked to dine and sleep to-night at the
house of Mr. William Saunders, M.P., chairman
of the Central News. He lives near Croydon.
Rather an erratic old gentleman but most con-
siderate, for he writes to me : "I warn you that
if you are a smoker you will not be able to in-
dulge, for I do not permit smoking either in my
house or in my garden ; and likewise water is our
only beverage." I am not much of a smoker or
drinker, but I think I shall go instead to see Nellie
Farren in Monte Cristo at the Gaiety.

Ordered two suits of clothes to-day at Hoare's,
in High Holborn; rather extravagant in having
an extra pair of trousers for each, since they cost
i los. a pair, but considering that they would
charge three times that in New York I am
justified. Nelson, in Hanover Street, is charging
me nine guineas for an evening suit, presumably,
I suppose, because he displays a sign indicating
that he was coat-maker to his Majesty Louis
Napoleon when he was a refugee in London in
the 'forties.

I think it a strange habit for business men of
all ranks to knock off at eleven o'clock in the
morning and go out to a public-house for a drink.
I notice this particularly in the City in the neigh-
bourhood of the Bank. Champagne at sixpence a
glass appears to be the favourite tipple.

Henry Irving has sent me a box for to-morrow

JUNE, 1887

night at the Lyceum, where he is appearing with
Ellen Terry in Much Ado About Nothing.

Had lunch to-day with Sir William Pearce, the
shipbuilder who built the giant Oregon for the
Guion Line, and when they could not pay handed
her over to the Cunard, under whose flag she went
down off the American coast run into by some
unknown sailing ship. Sir William is a believer
in big ships. He thinks the 10,000 tons of the
Majestic and Teutonic, now building, will be
greatly exceeded, so that we may expect passenger
ships of at least 20,000 tons, with a speed of
twenty-one knots ; electric light throughout, and
even lifts to carry passengers between decks. A
visionary old gentleman.

Thursday, June 23, 1887.

Archibald Forbes, the war correspondent
whose method of transmitting information re-
volutionised the reporting of important events
abroad, took me under his wing to-day, and
asked me to meet Charles Stewart Parnell, the
Irish agitator. We lunched at Forbes* house
somewhere off Regent's Park. Parnell is best
described as a silent, enigmatic, unhappy,
emotionless misogynist. He spoke very little
during luncheon, ate sparingly, drank nothing.
Forbes was telling some vivid stories of his
experiences in the Russo-Turkish War, and once

s DIARY

or twice ParnelPs eyes lighted up, and he showed
keen interest.

Forbes was talking about the Ku Klux Klan,
and essayed to compare them with the Irish
Moonlighters ; but Parnell disagreed vehemently ;
said the Moonlighters were unorganised, sporadic,
irresponsible, whereas the Ku Klux were well led,
and with a purpose. He questioned me closely
about the Irish " patriots " whom I had worked
with in New York newspapers J. I. C. Clarke,
John Boyle O'Reilly, James Clancy, John Devoy,
O'Donovan Rossa and Tynan, the famous
Number One of the Phoenix Park murders.
Parnell showed little difficulty in disguising his
contempt for Tynan's claims as an A.i assassin.
" Tynan," said Parnell, " was never a murderer,
nor was he even a willing accomplice, I am sure.
In the first place, he was just a poor, unimportant
commercial traveller with no political affiliations ;
and, secondly, from all accounts, which you
appear to substantiate from your own acquaint-
ance, he hadn't the courage of a slug. No, I think
the gang just used him as a carrier of the knives
without his knowledge, and now he is successfully
making a hero of himself with a certain section of
the Irish people. . . ." Parnell asked me to go
and see him.

I had my first experience of Hades to-day, and
if the real thing is to be like that I shall never
again do anything wrong. I got into the Under-
ground railway at Baker Street after leaving

6

JUNE, 1887

Archibald Forbes' house. I wanted to go to
Moorgate Street in the City. It was very warm
for London, at least. The compartment in which
I sat was filled with passengers who were smoking
pipes, as is the British habit, and as the smoke
and sulphur from the engine fill the tunnel, all
the windows have to be closed. The atmosphere
was a mixture of sulphur, coal dust and foul
fumes from the oil lamp above; so that by the
time we reached Moorgate Street I was near dead
of asphyxiation and heat. I should think these
Underground railways must soon be discon-
tinued, for they are a menace to health. A few
minutes earlier can be no consideration, since
hansom cabs and omnibuses, carried by the
swiftest horses I have seen anywhere, do the work
most satisfactorily.

Dined at the Savage Club, in Savoy Yard,
with Harold Frederic, who persists in predicting
a world war, and George du Maurier, the Punch
artist [father of Sir Gerald and author of Trilby],
who is also a lecturer. Much amused by the con-
versation of an old actor named Odell, who
appears to be the permanent attraction of this
interesting club.

Across the road, in the Gaiety bar, I indulged
in the fashionable pastime of discussing world
affairs over the marble-topped counter with one
of the twenty duchesses who act as barmaids.
This particular Juno tells me that her father is a
clerk in a City shipping office ; that he has been

7

R.D.B.'s DIARY

employed there thirty years, and his pay is thirty
shillings a week! He has brought up five
daughters and one son, and they now all con-
tribute something to the family, though only the
son lives at home. The four girls "live in"
where they work. Two are barmaids and two are
shop girls, and the combined weekly earnings of
the four is 2 6s. The brother is a clerk in a
shipping office, and receives 2 is. a week, out of
which he has to buy his top-hats and black coats.
These people mystify me. " Living in," by the
way, appears to be general here. All the men and
women employed in the shops live on the premises.

Friday, June 24, 1887.

I wrote to Mr. Gladstone on the off-chance of
obtaining an interview. He is keen on publicity
in the American Press on account of their sym-
pathetic attitude towards his Irish policy. To-
day I have received a post-card written by him
at Hawarden, his country home near Chester,
asking me to go down there one day next week,
Tuesday, if possible, and remain overnight. Am
looking forward to that. George W. Smalley, the
doyen of correspondents here, congratulates me
on having " drawn the old man," who is usually
most elusive.

Everybody here appears to be wildly excited
over the experiences of a certain Miss Cass, a
simple seamstress, who went for a walk in Regent

8

JUNE, 1887

Street and was arrested and locked up by a
policeman on the charge of annoying men. It
appears that Miss Cass is as pure as the driven
snow, and the newspapers, particularly the Pall
Mall Gazette, are highly and morally indignant.
Mr. Matthews, the Home Secretary [afterwards
Viscount Llandaff], is becoming involved, and
London's hitherto impeccable police are being
severely criticised.

The police, by the way, are really wonderful, in
spite of their ridiculous peg-top trousers and
heavy frock coats. How they can perform loyal
service on I 55. a week goes beyond me.

After lunch I went for a walk with Sir John
Puleston, M.P., in St. James's Park, which is a
most fascinating place. In front of us near Bird-
cage Walk, about twenty yards away, was a
young woman most fashionably dressed. She
was leading one of those silly clipped black
poodles, and was mincing her way along when
suddenly and most appropriately in Birdcage
Walk her bustle, shaped like a bird-cage, came
rattling down from out of her voluminous skirts.
She never deigned to turn, but walked on.
Innocently and stupidly in spite of Sir John's
restraining hand, I ran on, picked up the contrap-
tion, came upon the owner, and proffered it to her,
but she turned on me furiously and said : " Not
mine !" and walked on. I shall know better next
time.

Came home late after an evening at the Argyll

9

R.D.B.'s DIARY

Music Hall in Piccadilly [present site of Troca-
dero Restaurant], where I heard a singer poke
fun at the German princes who marry into the
British Royal Family. Most of the artists
appear to make their appeal with songs about
" booze " or how they beat "the old woman,"
presumably the wife. The best part of the show
was the chairman, who sits below the stage,
announces the performers, pounds his gavel for
order, and consumes endless and various drinks
at the expense of people in the audience who like
to let their friends see that they know the
chairman.

It was very warm in the theatre. I asked for
a long drink of lemonade, which here is called
" lemon squash." The waiter brought it, luke-
warm. "Will you get me some ice, please?" I
asked. "Get you what, sir?" he asked in turn.
"Ice." "Why?" "To make this stuff drink-
able." And then he burst into laughter. " We
don't keep it," he said indulgently. I cannot
understand how these people exist without ice. I
have not seen even a chip of it since I landed. As
for ice cream, they barely know what it is except
at expensive restaurants. The poor only get ale
and winkles.

Saturday, June 25, 1887.

Harry Eversfield; the young actor [he married
Eve Boucicault, daughter of old Dion, and

10

JUNE, 1887

formerly the wife of John Clayton, the owner of
the Court Theatre], came along to the Inns of
Court Hotel to-day, accompanied by another
actor named Chevalier, who is in Toole's
Theatre, in King William Street, Strand. They
wanted me to go with them to a shrimp tea at the
Ship Hotel, Greenwich, a famous resort. You go
by the penny boat from the Temple, alongside the
new Embankment. But I could not go with them
because I had promised to go to tea at the Rev.
Mr. Haweis' house, Cheyne Walk. Chevalier is
an interesting man, and much too talented to
stick behind in a stock company at a few pounds
a week. He has composed a number of Cockney
songs, and sang several of them for me. One of
them, " Mrs. 'Enery 'Awkins," ought to be pub-
lished, and I urged him to do so, but he seems to
be a backward, modest sort of creature, and will
probably always keep his light under a bushel.*
The Rev. Mr. Haweis lives in a fine Queen
Anne house boasting a pair of exquisite iron
gates. The house is supposed to be haunted by
the ghost of Queen Caroline, or some such person.
I did not have the courage to inquire, but my
cabby called my attention to the left window
from the front door. There is a staircase on either
side of the door leading to the first floor. . You
cannot go up the left one after a certain hour at
night. Something unseen pushes you back. The

* This was the great Albert Chevalier, whose Cockney
songs af erwards became world famous.

ii

RJ)3.'s DIARY

curtains and blinds of this big window are never
drawn, and so on. One day I shall look into this.
Mr. Haweis, who is a famous pulpit orator and
pamphleteer, had a little party of people, much
too intellectual for my conversational powers. I
expected to be drawn into a discussion on Church
politics, but all I could gather was that Lord
Lome [afterwards Duke of Argyll and husband
of Princess Louise] should not have fallen off his
horse in the Jubilee procession; that the great
MacDermott has received as much as 10,000
for singing the song, " We don't want to fight,
but by Jingo, if we do, we've got the ships, we've
got the men, weVe got the money, too," and that
a well-dressed young woman was seen last week
smoking a cigarette. . . . Anyhow, I was con-
siderably elated at my good fortune in being in
this atmosphere redolent of literary history; for
next door or two George Eliot used to live, and
Rossetti and Swinburne lived in Cheyne Walk,
too, while round the corner, a hundred yards or
so off, the master of them all, old Carlyle, only
recently stamped and raved at the world's
stupidity.

And so, as another diarist used to say, to bed,
or rather to Bloomsbury, where on Monday I
propose to move into lodgings in Montague
Street, opposite the British Museum. I am to
have a bedroom, a sitting-room, breakfast, " and
use of bath if vacant," all in for 2 a week.

12

JUNE, 1887

Sunday, June 26, 1887.

A remarkable and enjoyable experience to-day
such as could only be found in this delightful
summer country. John Moore, the head of the
Central News, gave a river party, and had asked
most of the members of his staff, their wives, and
some friends. Included in the latter were Arthur
Brisbane [now the highest salaried journalist in
the world, something like 75,000 a year],
" Jack " Wright, the inventor of the " ticker " *
which prints news in column form instead of
elongated tape, myself and Mr. Carey, a cousin
of Brisbane's. We met at Paddington at 10 a.m.
Never have I seen anything like it. There must
have been at least 5,000 people on the platforms
waiting for trains. All of them, men and women,
in white, and all wearing " boaters " [straw
hats], and every woman carrying a coloured sun-
shade. I am told this scene is presented every
Saturday and Sunday from eight until noon. We
got out at Maidenhead, and there took a large

* The Wright ticker came about in this way. John
Moore said one day that the single tape machine was a
nuisance. If someone could invent a column printer it
would prove a blessing. Wright, who had been a colleague
of Edison, said, " I think I can do it. What's it worth?"
" Oh, about 300," answered Moore. Some time later
Wright came along with his little model, and Moore gave
him 300, which, if it had been to-day, would have been
more like 30,000.

13

RJ)J.'s DIARY

steam launch and went up the river as far as the
Duke of Westminster's picturesque estate, called
Cliveden [now Viscount Aster's], where we were
especially permitted to land and picnic. The river
was crowded with rowing boats and punts, and
for long distances the banks were lined with
house-boats, blooming with flowers. The house-
boats appear to be the special summer resort of
the well-to-do, who live on them throughout the
summer. What struck me particularly was the
athletic prowess of so many young women, who
were astonishingly adept at rowing and punting,
and seemed to be quite capable of handling their
boats as well as the men. That I take it is the
reason why English girls are so fresh com-
plexioned and free in their movements. It is a
fact that you see fewer white-lipped and waxen-
cheeked girls than anywhere else, in spite of tight-
lacing, which is as prevalent here as in France or
the United States. But the women play tennis
and go for long walks. They are not restricted by
convention as in other countries.

Got back in time to go and hear Mr. Spurgeon
preach. He was not a novelty to me, for I have
long been familiar with the robustious style of
Henry Ward Beecher and De Witt Talmage.
There was an enormous congregation of Sunday-
dothed people, and Mr. Spurgeon held them as
by a string. He spoke of the tendency towards
self-indulgence on the part of the people, and
pleaded for more effort on the part of the " haves "

JUNE, 1887

for the salvation of the " have nots." When we
came out of the great tabernacle we stood for five
minutes at the corner and watched a pleasant
Sunday evening bout at fisticuffs between a
couple of well-soused natives, with a good ring
of encouraging onlookers and a couple of police-
men to see fair play.

Rather surprised this evening to have a call
just before turning in from Jeff Colbourne, a
famous New York confidence man whom I used
to see in the haunts of the wicked in my report-
ing days. He wants me to vouch before the
United States authorities in Great St. Helens that
to my knowledge he has led a straight and
virtuous life for the past four years. I might be
able to make that declaration, since to "my
knowledge " I do not know where he has been. I
asked him what he is doing here. " Selling silver
mines in Nebraska," he said, with just the
suspicion of a wink. " But there's no silver in
Nebraska," I said. "Oh, yes, there is in my
Nebraska," and he took from his pocket a beauti-
ful map dotted with red, which are presumably
silver mines for sale to the gullible Briton.
"But," I expostulated, "this is just common
swindling. These are ' salted ' mines. How can
you expect me to vouch for you at the Consulate
with this going on?" " Oh, well," he said, " I'm
only doing what hundreds of respectable firms
are trying to do. If we can't find silver mines for
*em they'll demand ' salted ' ones. They simply

15

RJ>J*.'s DIARY

must have 'em, and since .they will throw away
their money, why can't I have some of it?" He
went away shaking his head at my stupidity.*

Monday, June 27, 1887.

Had the extreme felicity to-day of meeting a
youth who is fast becoming world famous, young
Mr. Benzon, " the Jubilee Plunger." He has just
reached his twenty-first year and has come into a
fortune said to be 300,000, presumably all in
cash, for he is throwing it about recklessly. At
this rate it will not last many years. [Actually
one year.] He is a decent youngster, with no
experience and not much brain, and he seems to
want to cut a dash racing, four-in-hand, late
suppers, cards, and so on. Consequently he is
always surrounded by a gang of harpies who are
having a profitable season. I was introduced to
the Jubilee Plunger at the Criterion by old
"Pony" Moore, of Moore and Burgess*
Minstrels. Benzon had just concluded a bet of
1,000 to 100 on Charlie Mitchell, the prize-
fighter [Moore's son-in-law] against John L.
Sullivan in the fight which is to take place in
France in the near future.t

*Jeff got two years in October, 1887, for selling a
mythical steamship to a man at Birkenhead.

f The battle which took place at Chantilly in the follow-
ing March lasted 3 hours and 1 1 minutes for 39 rounds,
and ended in a draw.

16

Ky courtesy of T/it- Graphic

H.M. QUEEN VICTORIA in June 1887 when she celebrated her
Jubilee

JUNE, 1887

I was puzzled a good deal to-day, not being
conversant with custom, to see in this morning's
Standard that "the Archbishop of Canterbury
and Mrs. Benson " had been spending a week-end
together at Bournemouth* It shocked me to read
this barefaced announcement until I was told
that the Archbishop's name is also Benson.

Lunched to-day at Hampstead with Walter
Besant, the author, whose books appear to have a
greater sale than those of any other British
author, with perhaps the exception of Charles
Reade and R. D. Blackmore, author of Lorna
Doone. Mr. Besant astonished me by telling me
that the novel The Golden Butterfly, which he
and the late Mr. Rice wrote in partnership, did
not have so great a sale as the later book, The
World Went Very Well Then, and that the
American circulation of the latter was greater
than the British. The trouble in this country is
that average people do not buy books, but sub-
scribe to the pernicious library system. They
seem to be prepared to wait weeks for their turn
at a new volume.

There was present at luncheon a tall, extremely
well-dressed young man, with whom I returned
to town in a hansom cab. I noticed that part of
his forehead was very much sunburned, but one
part, from the hair to the nose above the right
eye, was of a different colour. This is "the
swagger mark " indicating the soldier. It comes
from the pill-box, which protects only a small

17

RJ)3.'s DIARY

portion of the head and forehead from the sun ;
a much-coveted distinction. On the way he told
me that he is a private in the 2nd Life Guards,
and that "the gentlemen of the Guards " are
permitted to go out off duty in mufti if they so
desire. A large number of these Guardsmen,
however, prefer to go out in uniform, shell jacket,
very tight overalls, and pill-box askew on head,
ready to be hired for afternoon or evening by
nursemaids to " walk out." There is a regular,
fixed tariff. Household Cavalry for afternoon
out in Park, half-a-crown and beer. Brigade of
Foot Guards, eighteen-pence and beer. Royal
Horse Artillery, two shillings. Other services, a
shilling. The fact that there is a big demand is
shown by the large number of females at barrack
gates early in the afternoon and evening waiting
to engage escorts.

Wednesday, June 29, 1887.

I spent from five o'clock until seven this
evening watching the spectacle of London society
airing itself in Hyde Park. There can be no more
wonderful sight anywhere. Certainly there is no
place on this earth where there can be seen at one
time so many gorgeous equipages, such beautiful
horses, and such a display of elegance. Queen
Victoria, who is said not to like London, and is
therefore seldom seen in the capital, has been out
every day of this momentous week. She drove

18

JUNE, 1887

into the Park at a quarter-past five all trlffic
being waved to one side in a great C-springed
landau with outriders and gentlemen riding
alongside. Shortly after she was followed by the
Princess of Wales [Alexandra] a most beautiful
woman whose great popularity with the people,
especially the women, is in no doubt. There were
hundreds of carriages, landaus, barouches,
victorias, curricles and private hansoms, and
such horses ! The powdered and bewigged foot-
men in front and behind the vehicles, the red,
blue and yellow plush of breeches, the silk stock-
ings of the flunkeys, the flashing buckles just
like a fairy tale. The great thing to do, if you
are a " blood " and in the swim, is to lean over
the iron rails and be recognised by milady as
equipage after equipage rolls by in lordly
grandeur. There was not a shabby-looking turn-
out to be seen. It is one of the worst of social
misdemeanours to send a carriage and pair into
the Park indifferently accoutred.

Frederick Wicks, of The Times, has invented
a machine which casts and sets type. It is not
the first of its kind nor the last, but I doubt if
type-setting by machinery will ever be as efficient
or indispensable as hand setting. Wicks says
The Times are to adopt his system. They already
have a machine called the Kastenbein, which sets
typefounders' type, but I doubt if it is a great
success. I have often had conversations in
America with Mergenthaler [inventor of the

19

:$ DIARY

Linotype] who is optimistic about his casting
and setting machine, but, like all inventors, every
goose to him represents a swan. I went with
Wicks to The Times works to-day and Mr.
Wright, the printer, showed us round the sub-
terranean workshops where they actually make
the great Walter press. Indeed, The Times is a
self-contained affair. It is a curiously consti-
tuted business, split up into dozens of family
shares based on legacies, so that nothing can ever
break the control of the property by the Walter
family.*

Harry Gillig, who manages a travellers' ex-
change, told me to-night that there have never
been so many well-to-do visitors in London, due
no doubt to the Jubilee festivities. The fashion-
able hotels such as Long's [Berkeley Square],
Brown's [Dover Street], the Bath [Piccadilly
and Arlington Street], and the St. James' [now
Berkeley] are all crowded, and you cannot get a
suite under 2 a day.

Thursday, June 30, 1887.

There was a large dinner this evening at the
Grand Hotel in aid of a charity for widows and
orphans, and the presiding officer was the Duke

* The Times was purchased by Lord NorthcliflFc in
19089 and by Major Astor, M.P., in 1922, but the present
head of the Walter family remains chairman of the com-
pany.

20

JUNE, 1887

of Cambridge, an amiable, side-whiskered old
gentleman with just the nicest touch of a German
accent. He is first cousin of Queen Victoria,
and missed being King George of England by a
few weeks i.e., if the Duke and Duchess of Kent
had not come here post-haste from Hanover the
young Princess might not have been born here,
and so her cousin, the child of the Duke of Cam-
bridge, would have succeeded his uncle, William
IV. So they rewarded his Royal Highness with
a good life-long post as Commander-in-Chief of
the British Army [they deposed him in 1899],
and although he is somewhat of a martinet and
exceedingly old-fashioned, he is generally popular
in the Army in spite of the fact that the wits
insist that he carried an umbrella during the rainy
season in the Crimea Campaign.

Before making his somewhat perfunctory
speech asking the guests present to subscribe to
the charity in question, the Duke appeared to be
impatient to reach the speaking stage, and kept
turning to the red-coated master of ceremonies
all the time making violent gestures. I learned
afterwards that he was anxious to push the pro-
ceedings towards the smoking and not the speak-
ing stage. Presently the red-coated master
leaned over the royal shoulder and then, calling
for order, bowed low as H.R.H. rose ponderously
and gave the customary toasts, " Her Gracious
Majesty the Queen," " The Prince and Princess
of Wales and the other members of the Royal

21

RJ).'s DIARY

Family/ 1 and then, in a changed tone, like the
rasping call of a sergeant-major, "Gentlemen,
you may smoke !" Then he lit an enormous cigar
and looked round and beamed.

The next most important guest was the Right
Hon. George Joachim Goschen, M.P., Chancellor
of the Exchequer [later Viscount Goschen], a
tall, bent, scholarly looking man with a poor
voice and indifferent oratory. They say he is a
genius at figures, and he ought to be, since he was
specially picked from a great city house of finance.
He, too, has German connections, for the firm of
Fruehling and Goeschen, of Hamburg, is world-
famous. I was talking to a man beside me, and
he told me that practically every big financial
firm in the City of London is either of German
extraction or has close German blood relations,
just as in former days all the financial business
was done by the Lombardy merchants, who came
from Italy and started business in Lombard
Street, where their quaint signs representing
birds, fishes, stars, moons, boars, and stags, still
swing over the doorways.

I met a most interesting man who lives at New-
castle, a printer in a large way, named Read or
Reid. He had with him a Scottish friend, a man
named Rawson, who asked me to go with him to-
morrow to see him play in a match at the game
of golf, at Wimbledon. I have never seen it
played, and shall go. Rawson tells me that most
everybody in Scotland plays golf except on

22

JUNE-JULY, 1887

Sundays, when they all go to the kirk and that
it is the most absorbing, most exciting, most con-
centrating, and most healthful pastime ever
known; to all of which I lent a respectful but
doubting ear, and through my mind there kept
running the retort " Rubbidge I" If it is such a
wonderful game why is it that only the Scots play
it? From his description it appears that you
strike a ball a long way and then walk after it and
do it again.

July, 25, 1887.

Off Queenstown, Ireland. I am writing on
board the Guion liner Wisconsin, 4,000 tons,
Captain Bentley. The purser, Albert Brandt, a
jovial comedian, has just been playing the banjo
to me in his cabin and singing " Gathering the
Myrtle with Mary Mary of Sweet Dunloe."
The ship is packed. We have just taken on 450
odd shock-haired, tousled Irish colleens, who are
going to America to become cooks, housemaids,
nurses, policemen's wives, and senators' spouses.
They are packed away forward on shelves, on
their own bedding, five or six deep, one shelf atop
of the other, and "when the breeze begins to
blow " Heaven help them ! for Brandt says that in
bad weather the hatches are put on, and some-
times no whiff of fresh air penetrates to the steer-
age for many days. But they are a hardy lot, in-
ured to a rough life, and will get through all right.

RJ)3.'s DIARY

There is only one deck on which to walk. The
classes, first, second, and steerage, are divided by
a rope stretched across the deck, the first class at
the stern. There is no ladies 9 cabin or boudoir.
The ladies may sit, six at a time, in the upper
companion-way leading to the saloon. The smok-
ing-room is a ten by twelve deckhouse, holding
four green baize-topped tables, with a horsehair
upholstered bench running round the four sides.
Smelly, swinging oil lamps. Cabins situated on
each side of saloon, which is very narrow, with
two long bench-like refectory tables. The food is
good and wholesome, without frills. All first-
class passengers look like tramps, for it is
customary to wear your shabbiest clothes at sea.
There is no sartorial ceremony. I am told that in
some of the ships going to India they dress for
dinner.

My neighbours in the next cabin are two iron-
grey men, one of them all doubled up with
rheumatism, unable to walk, who were brought
on board by four detectives, who did not leave
until the vessel blew the last signal. The two men
are the world-famous Bidwell brothers, the most
formidable and ingenious bank swindlers ever
known. These two young Americans, one of
them, Austin, who is now a cripple for life, was
only twenty-seven years of age when, at the head
of a clever and daring gang, they came to Europe
in 1873 and began operations, choosing the Bank
of England for victim. Austin Bidwell, the

JULY, 1887

master forger, had plotted a crime that involved
no less than 100,000,000. The gang was re*
sourceful and well financed. They had already
secured a large sum from the bank by dint of
Austin's forgeries, but in the end, after a sensa-
tional chase, they were captured, and Austin and
his brother were sentenced to prison for life. They
were released early yesterday morning after
having served fourteen years. Both are prema-
turely old. I talked with Austin this morning,
huddled up in his steamer chair, a pathetic old
man of forty-one, who has taken refuge in re-
ligion. He told me that for years he lay in a dark,
sweating, damp cell at Dartmoor.

" You cannot imagine the hell of prison life/ 1
he said. " Never a smile, never a kind word,
never anything but dark, foggy, miserable cold
stone walls and food that revolts. When the
doctors finally said that I must be removed or die,
the warder reported it to the Home Secretary,
who sent specially to examine me, and here is the
result. I am discharged, but I can never come to
England again ; nor do I want to."

Bidwell then handed me a long poem, covering
seven or eight pages of foolscap. He wrote it in
prison, " I wrote one like that every week," he
said, " until my hands became crippled. But if
I had not written so much I think Pd have gone

insane."

The brother has not spoken a word since they
came on board.

RJ).B.'s DIARY

All the officers of this ship, with the exception
of Mr. Jones, the third mate, and Mr. Brandt,
are over sixty-five years of age. The first officer
is over seventy, and the chief engineer, Mr. Alex-
ander, a tall, bearded Scot, is seventy-two. They
are all old-time sailors, and prefer the ship to be
going under full sail rather than rely on her
engine,

I went aloft with the 'bosun coming down
channel and spent an hour with the look-out men
in the crow's nest.

There is now a hiatus of three years, during
which the writer pursued his calling as a jour-
nalist in the employ of the " New York Herald."
He made many journeys and returned to Eng-
land for a fortnight in 1889, but this visit was
purely on holiday, and produced only the usual
holiday diary notes. His experiences as a
special correspondent in war and peace during
those three years are subjects for discussion else-
where.

The Diary is resumed in September, 1890,
when the diarist, who had been promoted to the
editorship of the New York " Evening Telegram"
the " Herald's " evening edition, was sitting in his
office at Broadway and Ann Streets. He had just
signed a renewal lease for three years for his
apartments "up town" at Thirty-third Street
and Broadway, when a cablegram from Mr.
James Gordon Bennett, the famous " Com-

26

JULY, 1887. SEPTEMBER 1890

modore" informed Mm of a change in plans
which would completely alter his life.

Saturday, September 13, 1890.

At sea on board La Champagne, bound from
New York to Havre. . , .

I had no sooner signed the lease for my rooms
at the Alpine apartment house yesterday, when
Jimmy Williams, the negro, brought me a cable
from the Commodore thus :

"Hand over to Howland. Sail to-morrow
French line prepared not to return for at least a
year. Want you to take charge London.
Bennett."

So here I am, bound for France, blindfolded,
so to speak. What to do with my rooms I do not
know. I shall ask Dunlevy, who has Hyde and
Behman's Theatre at Thirty-fifth Street and
Broadway, to look after it ; or Richard Harding
Davis, whose lease will be up next month and may
thus care to take over mine. He has suddenly
emerged from a cub reporter to the writer of
acceptable short stories, and he ought to do quite
well. It was just like the Commodore to disrupt
me without notice. He dotes on that sort of thing,
and I suspect he knew that I was renewing my
lease, and so, impishly, interfered by cable. He
did the same thing with James Creelman last

27

R.D.B.'s DIARY

year. Also when Nordhoff, our Washington
correspondent, had completed the purchase of his
house in New York, because he was to be pro-
moted to the editorship at headquarters, the Com-
modore ordered him back to Washington, and
then retired him on condition of his going to Cali-
fornia to live. I am sorry, too, to leave my
Evening Telegram, which has been doing very
well lately, with a circulation of 70,000, and
practically no loss. If I had made a profit the
Commodore would have deposed me, but I
mustn't make the loss too conspicuous. Albert
Fox, our efficient advertising manager, saw to
that.

This French ship is totally different in its
personnel from that of the British vessels. The
sailors do not seem to be so alert. Early this
morning when a strong gale was blowing it still
is the mainsail was ripped clean in two and
flapped most dangerously for a long time. The
way these sailors went at it make me think that
their hearts weren't in their jobs.

Most of the passengers are French, Cuban,
Mexican, or Brazilian, many of them revolution-
aries who have left their country for their
country's good. They all make for Paris. Very
few Americans or British. One Englishman is on
board, dressed in baggy knee breeches, such as one
will occasionally see in England in the country.
He is quite unconcerned about his incongruous
appearance.

28

SEPTEMBER, 1890

The purser has introduced me to a new drink
called Martini cocktail, which he mixes in his
cabin at noon, before luncheon. It is made of a
mixture of gin and French vermouth and a dash
of Angostura bitters ; most alluring and certainly
a better drink than the dreadful wormwood stuff
called absinthe, which they sip all day long in
the smoking room. I am told that this absinthe
habit is responsible for much crime and lunacy
throughout France [now forbidden by law].

At luncheon and dinner every saloon passenger
is presented with a bottle of red or white wine,
according to desire.

We could not drop our pilot off Sandy Hook,
after reaching the open sea ; weather too bad. The
little pilot schooner stood almost on her head
while she was waiting for us to send the pilot back
to her, but the captain would not let him go, and
so to Havre he goes with us. His name is Corcoran.
He is a typical Yankee sailor man, hating the
French and their ways, distressed beyond words
that his supply of chewing tobacco will only last
another day, and unhappy to think that he will
be unable to communicate with his family for
another three weeks.

The pilot schooners remain at sea for a couple
of weeks at a time, taking on and putting off
pilots. They are small, swift sailers, but hide-
ously uncomfortable and wet but the men earn
as much as 100 dollars a week sometimes.

29

R.D.B.'s DIARY

Pans, Monday, September 22, 1890.

I arrived here last night after a terrible cross-
ing. Had to go to bed at once, and tossed about
all night. Am staying in a little hotel called
Louis le Grand, just off the Avenue de 1'Opera.
Just had a most excellent luncheon at Bignon's,
which, with Tortoni and the Cafe de Paris, shares
the honours of the city. Esc argots (snails), of
course, and moules mariniere. I saw a man
drinking Munich beer, which is something to be
remarked upon, because the French still bar
everything German, after their defeat of twenty
years ago. There was a riot a few weeks ago at
the Opera House, when they attempted to put on
an opera of Wagner. Whether it was because of
its German origin or because Wagner opera is
provocative and not yet understood, I cannot say.
Charles Inman Barnard, who is the Commodore's
secretary, says there is a restaurant close by in
the Avenue de TOpera, where I can get German
beer, but they call it Viennese.

I made my duty call on the Commodore, at 120,
Avenue des Champs Elysees, where he lives. He
kept me waiting as I expected he would for
nearly two hours, and then sent Charles Chris-
tiansen out to ask me to come to-morrow.
Christiansen is the efficient major-domo-secre-
tary-manager, whose father was a boatswain in
his master's yacht, Namouna. The Commodore
took the boy, educated him, and brought him to

30

SEPTEMBER, 1800

Paris. He is very efficient, but leads a hectic life.

Paris looks most gay and lively. On the
Avenue I saw, for the first time, a bicycle fitted
with airblown tyres, the invention of an Irishman
named Dunlop. They say that the buoyancy and
resilience obtained from the use of this modern
invention will make bicycling not only more
pleasurable as a pastime, for they are proof
against bumping, but that greatly increased speed
will be obtained. To me these hugely inflated
rims look hideous and cumbersome. Besides,
when they receive a cut and the air is deflated,
they become quite useless for a long time. Mean-
while the solid-tyred machine, with its immunity
from deflation, once more illustrates the story of
the hare and the tortoise.

At the Moulin Rouge to-night a rather rough-
and-ready sensational dance and variety hall
I met the great Paulus, the music-hall singer
whose rendering of a popular song nearly had the
effect of making another Napoleon of the great
General Boulanger, whose white horse and white
plume were so familiar in Paris a year ago.
Boulanger was the popular hero. If he had not
preferred to keep tryst with a lady at Clermont
Ferrand, where he commanded, rather than come
to Paris, where the conspirators were waiting for
him to declare a coup d'etat, he might now be
Emperor at Versailles. [Instead he had to fly to
London and seek death in 1891 at Brussels, on
the grave of his loved one.]

3'

RJD.B.'s DIARY

Paulus, who is the highest paid music-hall
artist in France, told me that his Boulanger song
drove the people wild with enthusiasm, but that
the general was really made of poor stuff, and
could never have emulated Napoleon.

" He was too vain, too sentimental, too theat-
rical," he said. " He thought more of his lady
love and his beard and his white horse and his
great sash than he did of political strategy, and
so he had to go under, poor chap. But he came
within an ace of it, and we might to-day again be
an empire."

Sad story.

Tuesday, September 23, 1890.

Called this morning at Champs Elysees to see
Mr. Bennett. He sent word I was to come again
to-morrow.

Wednesday, September 24, 1890.

Called at Champs Elysees. Same reply,
" Come again to-morrow."

Thursday, September 25, 1890.

Called at Champs Elysees. Commodore
greeted me effusively, and invited me to drive to
Poissy for breakfast in his four-in-hand. He
drove all the way down. Detaille, the famous

3*

SEPTEMBER, 1*90

war painter, sat beside me; Charles Inman
Barnard, Mr. Tiffany, and some three or four
strange English and American tourists who were
passengers. On the way back the Commodore
handed the reins to Fownes, the professional
whip, and asked me to sit inside with him and
talk business, but he talked mostly about other
things all the way back to Paris, He asked me
to call on him at 9,30 to-morrow morning. The
only reference to business during the journey was
a remark about Joseph Pulitzer, whose World in
New York has been making a lot of noise and
money. " Poor, misguided, selfish vulgarian.
Can't last," was all he would say. " He is going
to put up a skyscraper of fourteen or fifteen
storeys. We'll put up one of two floors, just to
show how it should be done."

Friday, September 25, 1890.

I called at Champs Elysees, and was shown
into the Commodore's room by Mme. Leon, the
housekeeper. The Commodore was drinking his
morning coffee. He had a couple of Pekinese
spaniels on his knees, and was apparently in a
good temper.

" Please go to London to-day," he said. " I've
lost 1,000 a week now for over a year on that
silly London edition, and I have ordered them to
stop it. I want you to conduct the funeral, so
to speak. Send all the Americans home and give

33

RJ).B.*s DIARY

the British proper compensation for the loss of
their positions. They have a funny habit over
there of claiming compensation whenever they
lose their jobs. But don't worry me about details.
There is still time to save the Sunday edition, and
if you see fit you may continue it. But don't con-
sult me. It's your responsibility. If you go on
with it and lose a lot of money I will hold it
against you. If you make a lot of money I'll give
you a third of the profits but you'll not make it.
There is a lot of machinery at no, Strand, where
we have been printing the paper, and you will
have to get rid of it as best you can. But what-
ever you do don't worry about it. I hate the very
name of London now."

Then the Commodore picked up his Pekinese
dogs, gave me a nod, said, " Good luck," and left
the room. He is a strange, fascinating, enig-
matical figure. If he had not been born rich and
had to earn his living he would have been the
world's greatest journalist. But he has been
hopelessly spoiled for many years, and is now
just like an Eastern potentate. His word is law.

London, Monday, September 28, 1890.

Had a terrible Channel crossing on Friday, on
board the Petrel. [A side-wheeled, tiny ship, and
very fast.] The hour's crossing from Calais to
Dover was so tempestuous that no one could stay
on deck; and down below life was not attractive.

34

SEPTEMBER, 1890

It shook me up to such an extent that the moment
I reached London I went to bed and remained
till Saturday noon. Then went to the Strand
office of the New York Herald and surveyed the
wreckage of the late daily. Among the mourners
I found the editorial department comprised of
Louis Jennings, M.P. for Stockport, A. Oakey
Hall, former mayor of New York, John Russell
Young, recently Minister to Peking, and Joseph
Hatton, the author of the amazing book, By
Order of the Czar. They were not very gloomy,
since they had expected the collapse from day to
day; so we all adjourned to Simpson's coffee
house, close by, and had mid-day punch.

I have decided to keep the Sunday edition
going, and propose to introduce a novelty or two ;
such as a racing competition and a prize for the
reader who gives the best solution in football.
Also, I think a novelty will be a whole page for
children. There has been a children's corner up
to now, and I shall enlarge it to a page.

A good deal of trouble this afternoon with
people who say they have been wrongfully dis-
missed : that one month is inadequate. One man
in the advertising department says he is entitled
to six months, because he was once addressed as
the manager of the department, and that
managers are entitled to six months. As he only
got 3 a week, I did not mind giving him 78,
and he was most profuse in his gratitude.

I have taken rooms at a house in Torrington
35

DIARY

Square, quite presentable, sunny and well
furnished. The place is run by a man who, I take
it from his accent, is a Viennese.

Friday, October j, 1890.

I only stayed a few days at my lodgings in
Torrington Square. It was quite a nice place,
but on the third morning the proprietor came and
sat with me while I was having my morning
coffee, and told me that his profession was that
of " official embalmer " to most of the foreign
embassies and legations. Whenever a well-to-do
foreigner dies in London my landlord is called
in to embalm him. That was too much for me.
For some reason my coffee took on the composi-
tion of embalming fluid, and on the next night
I had a dreadful nightmare, in which I was being
scientifically embalmed. So on the following
morning I paid up and came to live in Duke
Street, St. James'. I have a comfortable sitting-
room, a bedroom, a real bathroom not a port-
able bath and valeting, all in, for 2 los. a
week.

I do not find many places to dine. There is
the Cafe Royal, in Regent Street, a first-class
restaurant much frequented by French refugees ;
Verrey's, a bit more sedate; Scott's, at the top of
the Haymarket ; the St. James', given over to the
jeunesse doree; and Simpson's, in the Strand.
You cannot get a meal anywhere after ten o'clock

36

OCTOBER, 1890

at night, except at old Dolaro's supper dub, in
Percy Street, off the Tottenham Court Road,
where the prices are high and no change is given.
Selina Dolaro, his wife, who used to be a comic
opera singer, is the chief barkeeper.

You can also get a fair meal at the Continental
Hotel, at the foot of Regent Street, but it isn't a
very ideal place. If an average Londoner has a
visiting friend, he either takes him to his house
for lunch or dinner, or to his club. The clubs
are usually crowded at seven, the dinner hour,
during the season. Just now they are deserted,
for 90 per cent of the members are on the moors
in the North, shooting grouse and partridges.

It is good to be in London again. I love to
sit on the top of an omnibus watching the vista of
black silk hats, like dark poppy fields. You can
no more separate a Londoner from his top hat
and his shiny black brief bag, which every self-
respecting Briton carries to and from his office,
than you can separate the Ethiopian from his
skin.

Had lunch at Groom's, in Fleet Street to-day,
with Mr. Cock, Q.C., a famous lawyer. Groom's
is a funny narrow little shop frequented mostly
by lawyers from the adjoining Temple. You get
an excellent chop for a very small sum. We
walked up Chancery Lane and met Mr. George
Lewis, [the first baronet], the solicitor who
handles all the celebrated social cases: a shrewd
quick-witted little man of the world. We talked

37

R.D.B.'s DIARY

about the Maybrick husband-poisoning case of
last year. Mr. Cock thinks she is innocent, and
that Mr. Justice Stephen, who sentenced her at
Liverpool Assizes, should not have been per-
mitted to remain on the bench, since he was him-
self half insane. Lewis agreed in the latter point,
but said he thinks, and so does Sir Charles
Russell, who conducted the case for Mrs. May-
brick, that she will soon be released from Woking
Prison, where she now lies. Her mother, the
Baroness de Roques, has succeeded in securing
an influential petition for pardon, which Colonel
Robert T. Lincoln, the United States Minister
here [son of Abraham Lincoln], has presented to
the Home Secretary.*

Saturday, October 10, 1890.

The Sunday edition which I retained is doing
fairly well, with only a slight loss, and that is due
to the heavy charges which the Commodore puts
on the paper, with his special fads and " personal
friend " salaries. I have made a contract with
Henry Burt, the managing director of Wyman &
Sons, printers, in Fetter Lane, to print the paper,
so that we shall no longer require our somewhat
old-fashioned plant at no, Strand, and I have
sold the two Victory presses, as they stand, to Mr.

* Mrs. Maybrick was not released until 1904, after hav-
ing served fifteen years* She then went back to the United
States.

38

OCTOBER, 1890

Horatio Bottomley, a city accountant, who is
acting as receiver for the Hansard Union, a great
amalgamation of printing houses, which came to
grief. Bottomley is an energetic young man, who,
I learn, has got control of Galignani's Messenger,
the Paris daily, which is on its last legs.

Marcus Mayer, still associated with Mme*
Patti, in spite of her retirement, came up to-day
to invite me to Craig-y-Nos Castle, in Wales,
where Patti lives a semi-retired life. She has
practically completed the building of her private
theatre on the estate, and proposes to open it in
great state. Signer Nicolini, her husband, was
with Mayer, glad, apparently, to come up to town
and civilisation for a bit. It is obvious that the
British country life is not congenial to this cosmo-
politan Italian.

Called this afternoon on Henry M. Stanley, the
explorer, who rests between his lecture tours. He
has taken a house in Richmond Terrace, and will
no doubt make it a perfect museum of African
treasures. They say that since his marriage with
Dorothy Tennant, the painter, he has become
more and more isolated, and sees few of his former
friends. I did not, however, find him in the least
aloof, but I suppose that is because we are both
Herald colleagues. He is chafing considerably
under the criticisms levelled at him by the families
of Major Barttelot and Mr. Jamieson, who were
officers of the Stanley Expedition rearguard and
were both murdered by natives on the Congo.

39

R.DJ.'s DIARY

Stanley said to me: " If they don't stop talking
against me Pll tell the truth about the rearguard,
and that will not be pleasant hearing for the
families of Barttelot and Jamieson."

Strange to say, on coming away, I ran into
Herbert Ward, who was one of Stanley's junior
officers. He is a nephew of Roland Ward, the
taxidermist in Piccadilly, and he is incidentally
a considerable painter and writer. He gave me
an inkling of what Stanley is likely to say about
Jamieson and Barttelot, and I gather from young
Ward's manner that his sympathies are entirely
with the dead men. Somehow the great explorer
does not seem to have brought home the love and
affection of his subordinates, though they all
admit his greatness. Ward told me that the
world can have no conception of the vastness of
Central Africa, which was crossed by the Stanley
Expedition. There are millions of black people
who know nothing of civilisation; great rivers
and mountains unknown, and he tells of a
waterfall which is as great, if not greater, than
Niagara.*

My old friend, Mme. Blavatsky, the theoso-
phist, sent me a note from the Avenue Road, near
Regent's Park, and asked me to go and have a
cup of tea with her. So I went. She says the

* Later on, goaded by these criticisms, Stanley charged
the two young men with having encouraged cannibalism.
These charges made Stanley unpopular, and he lost his seat
in the House of Commons,

40

OCTOBER, NOVEMBER, 1890

Theosophist movement, which is run by Colonel
Olcott, the American, and Mrs. Annie Besant,
will in due course swamp all other religions, sects
and movements.

The old lady was dressed in a loose wrapper,
and she had a great Indian shawl round her
shoulders. A large copper lamp glowed on the
table, although it was still light, and the floor
was littered with papers, photographs, em-
broidery, and tea things.

Monday, November io> iSpo.

This has been a considerable holiday, for it is
Lord Mayor's Day, and all London gave itself
up to the celebration. There was a procession
from the Mansion House down Fleet Street and
Charing Cross to Trafalgar Square, and then
back along the Embankment, a wonderful circus-
like pageant, particularly attractive this year, be-
cause one of the Sheriffs in the Lord Mayor's
entourage is Augustus Harris, the manager of the
Drury Lane Theatre, and he, with his stage
manager, Arthur Collins, has made the historic
procession more theatrical than it has ever been.
" Gus " Harris, in his green and gold carriage
of state, was wildly cheered all along the route,
for he is immensely popular. The Lord Mayor,
Mr. Alderman Savory, is a wholesale chemist, I
believe. He looked very fine in the great golden
coach drawn by magnificent horses, and driven

41 *>

R.D.B:* DIARY

by an enormously fat coachman in gorgeous
livery, all gold and satin and pink silk.

The aftermath of the show was a fine harvest
of drunkenness. The Strand at eight o'clock
to-night was agog with a milling stew of so-called
merrymakers, which means that there was
general license and intoxication. The " donah "
girls from the shops and factories, all dressed up
in great hats, bobbing with so-called ostrich
feathers, find great amusement in assailing inno-
cent passers-by with jets of water from little
leaden squirts. It is wisest to appear to like it.

I spent part of the evening at a theatre, the
Grand, at Islington, to hear a famous comedian
called Arthur Roberts in " The Man With the
Magic Eye." He is really very funny and appears
to have a clientele which follows him round
London, from one theatre to the other. His great
claim on popularity is no doubt his faculty of
spontaneous allusion to topical subjects. The
Cass case, which is still uppermost in the public
mind, gave him no end of subject for witticism.

D'Oyly Carte, the owner of the Savoy Theatre,
which Gilbert and Sullivan have made famous,
and incidentally manager of the Savoy Hotel, on
the Embankment, wants me to go and live there
instead of staying in Duke Street, St. James*. I
can have similar accommodation, bedroom, bath,
sitting-room, and valeting for 2 xos. a week.
He says he is finding difficulty in inducing people
to patronise the ; hotel. The restaurant is cer-

4*

NO? EMBER, 1890

tainly not popular, but that is due, perhaps, to
the failure of Londoners to adopt the Continental
habit of dining at hotels and restaurants. At
present the Savoy is given over to people from
abroad, and they are not many. Carte says that
if he had his way he would cut a way through,
so that the Savoy could be entered from the
Strand very much like Jabez Balfour's Hotel
Cecil, which stands up at the end of the little
road called Cecil Street. That, I hear, is to be
pulled down and turned over to the hotel.

I had a long and rather heated discussion this
afternoon with Sir Julian Goldsmid, who lives in
a beautiful house in Piccadilly [now the Splen-
dide Hotel] on the subject of a tunnel under the
Channel. Sir Julian is a director of the Brighton
Railway. He thinks a tunnel would be ruinous
to Great Britain. We could be invaded at any
moment. " If Napoleon had been fortunate to
have a tunnel at his disposal he would not have
died at St. Helena."

" No," answered Mr. Montagu Williams, the
famous Q.C., who was one of the party. " No.
He would have died in the tunnel."

Friday, November 14, 1890.

This has been an exciting week of alarms. The
Baring failure has produced sensation after sensa-
tion and, but for the prompt action of the Bank
of England, there would certainly have been a

43

RJ)J3:s DIARY

financial panic of the first order. When the news
of the collapse trickled out the newspapers found
much difficulty in learning the true position, and
this seemingly short-sighted policy had the effect
of spreading greater alarm and suspicion than
the facts warranted. It was hoped that the Bank
of England might intervene and help to save the
situation, but the Bank was silent. I suggested
to Mr. Walter, at The Times office, that they
should send their financial editor to see the
Governor of the Bank and get a statement, but
was told that if the Bank had anything to say
they would undoubtedly issue an official pro-
nouncement. So I went myself.

Unfortunately I was what was called "im-
properly dressed." I have not conformed to the
rule that in order to have the entree in the City
one must wear a silk hat and a frock coat. I have
been disporting myself in a bowler hat and
tweeds, while I still further trangress by wear-
ing light flannel shirts instead of white linen. It
is something of a fad to be wearing these loose
garments, but I am pleasing myself, and not
Dame Fashion. I frequently notice that my
loose-fronted shirt is the object of comment
among people, who think that one is uncivilised
unless the manly bosom is adorned with a stiff
white shirt. So I presented myself at the Bank
and, handing in my card, asked to see the
Governor, Mr. Lidderdale. A functionary in a
frock coat, who took my card, scrutinised me

44

NOVEMBER, 1890

suspiciously, boggled at my tweed suit and brown
shoes and my outrageous shirt, and then turned
on his heel to fetch a colleague, also in a frock
coat. He, too, looked puzzled, but I insisted, and
finally they took in my card. In two minutes out
burst the Governor himself.

" You are the very man we want to see. We
have been discussing the form of statement which
can be sent broadcast. Will you help us ?"

I was taken by him to the Governor's room,
and there we concocted a statement, which re-
assured the world, to the effect that the Bank
of England had come to the rescue.

I took the statement to Baron Herbert de
Reuter at Reuters', in Old Jewry, gave a copy
to Mr. McLean, of the American Associated
Press, another to John Moore, at the Central
News, a fourth to Mr. Robbins, at the Press
Association (who had already got it from
Reuters' when I arrived), and a fifth I handed
to Mr. Moberly Bell, at The Times office, and
lost nothing in telling him how The Times could
have had the " exclusive " instead of leaving it
to the New York Herald to get all the credit.

Incidentally Mr. Lidderdale was considerably
perplexed when he first talked things over. I
noticed that he frequently honoured me with
side-glances and every now and then looked at
my card, presumably to reassure himself as to my
status as London correspondent of one of the
world's greatest newspapers. Finally, when we

45

RJDJ.'s DIARY

had concluded the important document, which
was to prevent a financial panic, he looked up and
asked.

"Tell me, how old are you?" I said:
" Twenty-five." " And you are the head of the
New York Herald's London staff?" I yielded
assent to the impeachment. " Dear me," mused
the Governor of the great bank, " You are very
young to have so much responsibility."

To-night when I saw Mr. Walter at The Times
he congratulated me on having secured the Bank
statement, and incidentally he expressed surprise
at my youth. I reminded him of Delane, who
was editor of The Times, aged twenty-five.
" Oh yes," retorted Mr. Walter, " I know that,
but there was only one Delane !"

Saturday, February, 18, 1891.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find
variety in restaurants at night. There are only
three or four to choose from. So a few of us
Thomas Fielders, Captain Montagu Armstrong,
Romeo Johnson, of the U.S. Consulate, Henry
Lee, lessee of the Avenue Theatre, and myself
have taken 34, Grosvenor Road, in Westminster,
next to the Millbank Prison, the place from which
they used to ship the miscreants on board the
Thames to Botany Bay. It is a row of new
houses, and you have to pass through a road of
slum houses in front of Smith Square and

46

FEBRUARY, 1891

Grosvenor Road. The house, which is beauti-
fully fitted out, belongs to a solicitor named
Wilkins, and he has let it to us furnished at seven
guineas a week. We have engaged a housekeeper
and staff. Turner, my servant, is to be the butler,
and we take possession to-morrow, so that we
shall have a family group with a dinner party
every night. Henry Lee assumes the responsi-
bility for the house, and we pay him six guineas
each per week extra for wines and cigars. Lee
has just produced Monte Cristo at the Avenue
Theatre, with Charles Warner and Emily
Milward in the leading roles.

Loie Fuller, who used to play in Charlie Hoyt's
comedy companies in America, came to see me
this afternoon. She is very hard up, but plucky.
George Edwardes has given her a small dancing
part at the Gaiety, really out of the kindness of
his heart, and she gets about 3 a week for that.
She and her mother are living in a small room at
the top of the Victoria Hotel, where, again out of
kindness of heart, she is permitted to do her own
cooking. Loie tells me that she is designing a new
dance with the aid of electric lights, which may
be a novelty if anyone will take it.*

Went this afternoon with Paleologue, the artist,
and his wife to buy her a fur coat. We found one
at the London Fur Stores in Regent Street, a long,
beautiful sealskin coat, for which " Pal " had to

* Loie Fuller became an enormous success and made a
great deal of money with her flame dance.

47

:s DIARY

pay 80, which, considering you could buy them
three or four years ago for a third of the price, is
pretty high. There were some mink coats for
40, also very dear. Sealskin being, of course/
all the fashion now, demands these silly, out-
rageous prices.

The fur man told me that prices would go still
higher to 100 and more, but I can't believe that
anyone but an idiot would pay 100 for any kind
of a coat, even though he be hopelessly in love.

Colonel Howard Vincent, M.P., sat beside me
in the Underground to-day from Westminster to
Blackfriars, and explained to me his attempt
yesterday in the House to focus attention on the
importance of liaison between the Home Govern-
ment and the self-governing colonies, such as
Australia, Canada and South Africa. He moved
that these colonies should be asked to confer with
the Imperial Government on the question of the
development of inter-Empire trade. Vincent is
not a great orator, though he is an effective and
energetic speaker, but he says he made no impres-
sion. " The trouble is," he said, " that most of
our men in Parliament are noodles, who do not
know where and what the colonies are. Any-
how, they moved the previous question, and I lost.
But they'll have to invite them in some day or
lose 'em."

Sir Arthur Sullivan has asked me to go next
Saturday to the first night of a new operetta, The
Gondoliers^ which he and Gilbert have written for

FEBRUARY, APRIL, 1891

the Savoy. He is most prolific, for on the same
night he puts on at Cbvent Garden The Golden
Legend and at the New Royal English Opera
House [now the Palace Theatre] the English
grand opera Ivanhoe. Sullivan apparently pins
his faith to The Gondoliers. Eugene Oudin, the
tenor, who has married Marion Manola, the
soprano, tells me that he has been engaged to play
Ivanhoe. Others in the cast will be Ben Davies,
Norman Salmond, Esther Palliser, Miss Mac-
kintosh, and John O'Mara. It will be a great
experiment, and I imagine it will finally establish
English opera on the grand scale similar to the
Continent.*

Wednesday, April 23,

I spent a dull, late afternoon in the House of
Commons listening to Mr. Goschen expounding
the Budget. The only life in the proceedings was
infused by Sir William Harcourt, a large, over-
weighted, double-chinned gentleman who is said
to be a direct descendant of Plantagenet. Looks
pontifical but not royal. He charged the Chan-
cellor with having befuddled the country's
finances. Mr. Goschen estimates the ensuing
expenditure at 88,319,000, which is half a
million over the previous year, and the revenue
at 90,430,000, showing a surplus of 1,986,000.

* It was what the French call a succes d 9 e$time t but the
Royal English Opera House became a music-hall.

49

:s DIARY

He expects 13,750,000 from the sixpenny in-
come tax.*

I was even more interested in the census of
figures of the United Kingdom which has been
laid before the Commons. The total population
of England and Wales on the night of April 5
was 29,001,018, an increase of over 3,000,000 in
ten years. There are sixty-two towns with popula-
tions of over 50,000, Population of:

London 4,211,086

Liverpool 5i7>95*

Manchester 5O5>343

Birmingham 429,171

It is interesting to see that women are coming
more and more into active industry and com-
merce. For instance, in the City the number of
women engaged during the day was 50,416,
against 44,179 in 1811. As many as 52,413
persons entered the City via Liverpool Street
Station on the day of the census.

Before going to the Commons I went for an
hour to the Vaudeville Theatre to see Elizabeth
Robin's and Marion Lea's production of Ibsen's
Hedda Goblet. Both above ladies with Charles
Sugden, Scott Buist, and Mr. Elwood presented
a fine performance of a gloomy subject. They
are doing these matinees so well that they propose
putting it on at night. In the audience with me

*The estimated expenditure for 1928-29 was
760,322,000, the revenue 760,322,000. The income
tax now produces 232,900,000.

SO

APRIL, 1891

was Henry Lee, who is lessee of the Avenue
Theatre [Playhouse]. He says he proposes next
week to put on a parody of Ibsen called Heredity,
with W. H. Vernon and Fanny Brough; also
Robert Buchanan's The Gifted Lady. I do not
think 'twill last long, for Lee is financially un-
stable, as I know to my cost, and the actors want
to be paid.*

On my way home I called on Sir Richard
Quain, the famous physician, who is now an
octogenarian. Queen Victoria made him a
baronet this year. He told me that he had a
rough time with the authorities, who wanted to
charge him 300 for his baronet's patent. " So
after a long wrangle," said Sir Richard, " which
went on by letter for weeks, her Majesty wrote to
me that it was most unseemly for me to quarrel
with the officials, who were only doing their duty
in trying to collect the fees usual on such occa-
sions. Whereupon I wrote to her Majesty like this :

" 'Madam, I did not ask you to make me a
baronet. You did it without even consulting my
convenience. I am an old man and need no such
gew-gaws. I'm deeply obliged to your Majesty'
you see she and I are close friends, so I can say
what I like within reason ' I'm deeply obliged
to your Majesty, but if you want me to shine as
a baronet you oughtn't to make me pay for what
I didn't seek/

* A true prophecy. Lee's management lasted only a few
weeks more*

5'

RJ)JS.'s DIARY

"Well," and here Sir Richard chuckled,
* would ye believe it. Her Majesty paid it her-
self, but not without telling me that I ought to be
ashamed of myself ; which I wasn't."

Paris, Saturday, December 26, 1891.

Commodore had me over from London yester-
day. I went by Club Train [the Club train left
Charing Cross at 3 p.m.], and enjoyed talking
with the conductor, Mr. Snow [now general
manager, Sleeping Car Company, Cockspur
Street], Also on the train were Harry Marks,
who founded the Financial News, and Davison
Dalziel, who runs a news agency [later Lord
Dalziel of Wooler], Commodore saw me early
this morning at 120, Avenue des Champs Elysees,
and explained to me that since Pulitzer of the
World is putting up a great skyscraper of sixteen
or seventeen storeys, he proposes to put up one
of two storeys. "We'll show them," he said,
" that we need not let offices in order to pay for
our building." He then told me that he had taken
a thirty years' ground lease of a plot at Broad-
way and 34th-3$th Street: that he had asked
Stanford White, the architect [he was shot and
killed by Harry Thaw], to come over and find a
Renaissance building in Italy to copy from, and
*I was to go with

* We eventually selected the Town Hall of Verona, of
which the famous Herald building became a copy,

DECEMBER, 1891

I expostulated. I pointed out firstly that 34th
Street was too far from the centre of things* It
was like putting our present printing plant in the
Rue du Commerce out to the Etoile or from Fetter
Lane in London to the Marble Arch much too
far from the heart of things. Secondly, I do not
think the wholesale news dealers will care to go
so far up-town to collect their papers, and we will
have difficulty with telegraph and telephone lines
so far away. Finally, I emphasised the fact that
thirty years was no time in the life of a news-
paper, and that 1921, when the lease falls in and
the property reverts to the owners, is really not
so far off.

The Commodore listened patiently enough, for
him, and then said : " Never mind about all that,
Blumenfeld. Thirty years from now the Herald
will be in Harlem (five miles beyond) and 111 be
in hell ; so what do we care?"

Then he dismissed me and told me to go back
to London and see George Lewis and get him to
draw up a paper which would make Reick in
New York and myself each a one-third share-
holder in the Herald. I started to thank him,
and just as I got to the door he called me back
and said:

"And, by the way, reduce your salary by
10 a week for having tried to tell me my
business."*

* I only paid attention to his money whims when on
similar occasions he asked me to raise my salary.

53

RJ).B.'s DIARY

Saturday, April p, 1892.

Usual scenes in town to-night after Oxford and
Cambridge Boat Race, in which Oxford won by
two and a half lengths, the fastest time on record.
Empire, Alhambra, Trocadero, and Tivoli music-
halls jammed with rollicking semi-riotous mobs
of students. The Strand at 9 p.m. was pande-
monium.

Witnessed a curious, somewhat antiquated
scene in the smoking-room of the Victoria Hotel
at four this afternoon. I was sitting with Frank
Marshall White, William Bacon, Edwin Cleary
and Edwin Fox when Captain Harry Vane
Milbanke, heir to Sir John Milbanke, came in
and spoke to Fox. Both Milbanke and Fox were
formerly in the Life Guards. It appears that
Milbanke was carrying a challenge to a duel to
Fox from Mr. Hallett Borrowe, and it all arose
out of the indiscreet remarks of Colonel Tom
Ochiltree, the famous swashbuckler. Ochiltree
had told Frank White that a jury of honour in
Paris, composed of the Due de Morny, Milbanke
and Edwin Fox, had decided not to permit
Borrowe to accept a challenge from one Coleman
Drayton, on the ground that Drayton was not
entitled to the satisfaction which a gentleman
could demand. Frank White, who is the London
correspondent of the New York Sun, had cabled
this information, derived from Colonel Ochiltree.
It was a big sensation in New York, where the

54

APRIL, 1892

principals belong to Ward MacAllistcr f s 400.
Borrowe resented the breach of confidence by Fox
in having told Ochiltree in the first place, and so
challenged him to-day. Fox is a great giant of a
man, who has had all sorts of adventures all over
the world. Milbanke is a beau sabreur who has
fought many duels. He was to be the heir to the
Duke of Cleveland's millions, but he made an un-
fortunate marriage in Paris, and so lost it. But
he is rich. Should have lived in cavalier times.
He is a most charming companion, is said to be a
deadly shot and a magnificent swordsman. I
have asked Cleary to keep in touch with these
people, for they are just romantic enough and
daring enough and gallant enough to go in for a
duel. Will Bacon, who says he will be Fox's
second if they fight, does not think they will. He
said, with a yawn, " I've gone through these
alarms several times. At present I'm much more
interested in the reduction of this week's Bank
rate from 2 l /2 to 2 per cent., because that will
give me some more credit at the bank."

Turned in at Romano's for a few minutes to-
night and saw the Marquis of Aylesbury, who
usually wears coster clothes, with his wife, Dolly
Tester, the Brighton barmaid, Charlie Mitchell,
the pugilist, Abingdon Baird, the Scottish iron-
master who dispenses largesse with a lavish hand,
"Teddy" Bayley, and several convivial spirits
dispensing vociferous hospitality to all who
entered. Those who refused to drink were

55

RJDJ.'s DIARY

playfully tripped up on the sawdust-covered
floor.

Brussels, Sunday, April 24, 1892.

Exciting times. The duel between Edwin Fox
and Hallett Borrowe actually took place yester-
day noon on the sand dunes of Nieuport Bains,
near Ostend, and after two shots both were still
alive. Harry Vane Milbanke acted as second for
Borrowe, and I performed the task for Fox.
Duelling pistols .45 calibre, firing on the count of
" Three " at twelve paces.

I had a great hide-and-seek game for nearly
forty-eight hours before I finally got firmly into
the event. Edwin Cleary had been keeping me
posted in London for days on the movements of
the principals. I knew that Fox, who is a friend
of King Leopold of Belgium, had arranged to
have the fight here, and that in the case of
serious result the party would be protected by
the police.

On Friday afternoon Cleary told me in London
that Borrowe and Milbanke had left for Brussels
via Ostend in the morning, and that Fox, Bacon
and Frank White were going via Harwich that
night. So I arranged that Cleary and I should
travel to Antwerp with them. On the boat across
I disclosed myself to Fox. He was furious, for
he wanted to score off the Herald and give the
Sun man an exclusive report, because he dislikes

56

APRIL, 1892

the Commodore. I " squared " him eventually by
giving him an order on the Paris office for 200.
If he met disaster at Borrowers hands the 200
was to be paid to a nominee whose name was given
to me. One condition I made was that I should
witness the fight. But at Antwerp Fox repented
and gave me the slip, leaving me, as he thought,
securely and innocently behind at the Hotel St.
Antoine while he and the others went off to
Brussels. But I saw them go and followed them
at midnight to the Grand Hotel, Brussels. There
I thought it better to attach myself to Milbanke
and Borrowe.

Early on Saturday morning we all left by train
for Ostend, the two parties not on speaking terms.
The police along the route knew all about us and
saluted respectfully. At Ostend we were met by
two barouches and were driven out to Nieuport
Bains, a distance of about five miles. We went
to the Prevost Hotel, and the principals and
seconds changed into frock coats and top hats.
The local doctor with a box of instruments under
his arm joined us. The local gendarme kept the
handful of excited villagers at one end of the
street. They all knew why we were there. Then
at eleven o'clock the party sat down to a hearty
breakfast of steak and onions and champagne
all at the same table. At twelve we sallied out
into the broiling noonday sun, the doctor leading,
then Cleary, Fox, Milbanke, Borrowe, Frank
White, myself, and, rather shakily, Bacon, far be-

57

RJ)3.'s DIARY

hind. The sun and the champagne and the thirty-
four hours of excitement had affected him so that
on the way to the dunes he resigned as second
and became a mere onlooker. I was selected to
second for Fox.

The sand dunes, where we pitched, were like
deep bowls. The sun poured straight down on
the white sand and blinded us a good deal. Bacon
went to sleep on the ground. White, Cleary and
the doctor got out of reach, as they thought, and
sat on the rim of the dune above us. Milbanke
and I loaded the beautiful pistols and, rammed
down the charges. The order was twelve paces,
side sighting to fire on the order " One, two,
three," and firing between " two and three."

Fox's first shot, aimed high, whistled between
Cleary and the doctor above, and they quickly
disappeared from sight on the other side of the
rim. I went up to Fox, and he asked for a
cigarette. Borrowers bullet had torn the nap of
his buttoned frock coat, just scraping across. He
began to smoke, as cool as a duck. We loaded and
fired again. No result. The blinding sun on the
sand made it difficult for the men to see clearly.
Milbanke said that was enough, since honour was
satisfied. I suggested reconciliation, but they
both rejected that, and so the two parties
broke up. Most of them took the steamer for
Dover.

I went with Milbanke to Brussels to the Grand
Hotel, and as I had not enough money to pay for

58

APRIL, DECEMBER, 1892

the cablegram I was sending, Milbanke lent me
a thousand francs, although he objects to news*
papers.*

Friday, December 13, 1892.

Funny incident this afternoon in St. James's
Square. I got a cablegram from Clancy, the
foreign editor in New York, asking me to try and
get some information from the Foreign Office
about a report of a proposed naval demonstration
in Egypt in order to impress the Khedive. The
cablegram added : " Interview Gladstone, if
possible." I knew, of course, that the P.M.
would not be interviewed, so I determined on the
next course namely, to send a good informative
message about the British Fleet, its armaments,
foot-seconds sort of statistics.

There is a good naval library at the Junior
Travellers' Club in St. James's Square [now the
Sports Club], and thither I repaired to make up
my despatch.

Just as I came out of Charles Street into St.
James's Square I spied the Prime Minister walk-
ing round by the iron railings opposite, apparently
bent on an after-lunch walk. He had a big grey

* Captain Milbanke fought a duel in Germany with an
officer shortly afterwards, and was badly wounded. He
died at Davos that year. Fox was drowned in Australia;
Cleary, White and Bacon are dead. Borrowe distinguished
himself in the Cuban War. I think he is still alive. I hope
the Belgian doctor still flourishes.

59

.'s DIARY

shawl over his shoulders, and appeared to be talk-
ing to himself. The usual Scotland Yard
"shadow" was not there, so I concluded the
P.M, was only out for a few minutes. But it
appeared to me to be providential, and so, since
Mr. Gladstone knows me well and is always most
friendly to me, I stepped across, and, raising my
silk hat, said:

" Good-day, Prime Minister. I "

" Go away," said the P.M., without looking up,
and walked on. I stepped alongside, and said:

"But, Mr. Gladstone, you don't appear to
know me. I am Blumenfeld, of the New York
Herald, and I would like "

The old man stood still and glared like a
ferocious lion.

"Go away, I tell you," he added. "I
don't know you. Don't bother me," and
stumped on.

The old apple woman sitting beside her basket
opposite the Duke of Norfolk's house jeered at
me. A cabman on his hansom cracked his whip
at me; and I sneaked across to the club. I am
sure that to-morrow I shall have a post-card from
the P.M. asking me to overlook it. [I never
got it.]

I went to Bond Street Police Court this morn-
ing with Arthur Pearson to hear Sir John Bridge,
the chief magistrate, pronounce missing word
competitions as illegal. This will be a blow not
only to Pearson, who invented these competitions,

60

By courtesy of The Graphic
MR. GLADSTONE listening for the numbers of a division on

DECEMBER, 1892. 1893-1897

but also to the Harmsworth brothers [Northcliff e
and Rothermere] and George Newnes, who all
base their fortunes on this style of weekly circula-
tion getting. Pearson says at one time the replies
came in so thick and fast with shilling postal
orders enclosed that it was impossible to keep con-
trol. Office boys were found with their pockets
stuffed with postal orders. Those that were
crossed they shoved down the drains and choked
them up. Pearson says that the Harmsworths
must be making 50,000 a year clear. Three or
four years ago they were poor.

Willie Walrond tells me to-night he under-
stands that Jabez Balfour, the head of the great
Liberator Company, has resigned his seat owing
to the charges of fraud that are being levelled
against him and his colleagues. I met Balfour
some months ago. He looked to me like a smug
customer, and I shall not be surprised if he runs
away before they have the law on him. The ruin
that has been brought on thousands of poor people
who have lost their savings in Balfour's com-
panies is incalculable.*

1893-1897.

In January, 1893, the Diarist was suddenly
ordered to New York by Mr. James Gordon
Bennett to take charge of the construction of the

* Balfour subsequently absconded, but was captured in
South America, and went to prison for a long term.

61

RJ)3.'s DIARY

new Renaissance building and to assume the
duties of business manager, with which he was
wholly unfamiliar, since he was a journalist un-
trained to business methods. A year in Amenta
brought the completion of the building, after
which, desiring to live in England, he returned
here to form a company to manufacture type-
setting machines, which were just then coming
into use. But in spite of the absorption due to the
claims of a great manufacturing business, his
heart was in journalism, and for six years he con-
tributed to many papers and frequently acted as
a special correspondent.

Thus, for instance, the opening of the Kiel
Canal, in which there was an interview with the
All Highest on board the Imperial yacht in June,
*895> the funeral of President Carnot, for the
New York "American"; Mr. Hiram Maxim's
flying machine at Bexley; a trip with Beerbohm
Tree to Balmoral to do a special performance
of "The Ballad Monger" and "The Red
Lamp."

It is deemed unnecessary to give many details
from the Diary from 1894 to 1899. It was not a
transition period, and the Diarist was not so much
in touch with the great world as he was during his
journalistic days before and after.
Only here and there in the Diary are there
entries which indicate the manners, modes and
customs, such, for instance, as an entry in June,
i8p6, when it was fashionable for society to go

bicycling and breakfasting in Batter sea Park in
the mornings. Here is a specimen:

June 16. I went across Albert Bridge from
Cheyne Court at 9.45. The Park road was
already full of bicyclists, and many were
already having coffee and rolls. I rode for a
while with General [afterwards Field-Marshal]
Sir Evelyn Wood and Sir Francis Jeune, the
divorce judge [Lord St. Helier], Colonel
Brabazon [Major-General Sir John], Mr.
Claude Lowther, Mr. Sidney Greville, Lady
Sykes [Jessica], who rides a horse better than
she does a bicycle, Mrs. Brown Potter, the
actress, Lady Essex, Princess Dolgorouki, Mr.
Lewis Waller, the actor, and so on. Mr. Henry
Chaplin stood on the sidewalk looking on. He
told me he prefers to ride an i8-hand high horse
that hasn't got wobbly wheels.

In June, 1896, there was also a visit to Tun-
bridge Wells to inspect a number of horseless
carriages (motor-cars] which were put on exhibi-
tion by the Mayor, Sir David Salomons. The new
invention was generally derided. Besides, the law
required that a man with a red flag should always
precede a mechanically driven vehicle on the road.

In August, 1896, there is an entry of a conversa-
tion with Li Hung Chang, the famous statesman,
at the Chinese Legation in Portland Place, where
he was staying. Here is the entry:

63

R.D.B.'s DIARY

Sir Halliday MacCartney arranged an inter-
view for me with Li Hung Chang. It lasted
twenty minutes. The old man was gorgeously
dressed in sky blue. He eyed me quizzically
for a time and then asked quickly, hardly
giving me time to answer : " How old are you?
How much money have you got? How much
do you earn? Phew ! [or words to that effect]
that's a lot of money ! Are you married ? How
man y children? How old is your father? Your
mother? Do you live in a house with a garden?
How many servants do you keep? Do you
smoke 1" and so on. He simply would not get
down to business, and I could get nothing from
him on the Shimoniseki (Japanese) peace
treaty. A weird old bird. They say he is
worth over 30,000,000.

On June 12, 1897, there is an entry :

I witnessed Queen Victoria's progress in her
Diamond Jubilee Procession from Buckingham
Palace to St. Paul's, via South London. I saw
the return journey pass Chancery Lane and
Fleet* Street from a window in a stationer's
shop. Colonel Jack Cowans in Rifleman's
Uniform [Lieut.-General Sir John S. Cowans,
war-time Quartermaster - General] led the
military, which was composed of a fine selec-
tion of British, Indian, and other troops from
the Seven Seas ; Prime Ministers from a dozen

64

1893-1897 JUNE, 1896

colonies ; the German Emperor and all sorts of
potentates ; but I liked best the popular figure
of Field-Marshal Lord Roberts, V.C., on his
white charger. He got almost as many cheers
as the Queen.

* * * * *

Tuesday, June 2, 1896.

For some time past I have been receiving letters
and telegrams from Joseph Pulitzer, the blind
proprietor of the New York World, suggesting
that I should join his staff in an executive
capacity. I have constantly turned down these
invitations, because I am not enamoured of the
style of journalism represented by the Pulitzer
school. Mr. Carvalho, who is Mr. Pulitzer's
principal aide and an old colleague of mine, states
that I can have the choice of Managing Editor-
ship of the Morning World or the Evening World,
or charge of the Post-Despatch in St. Louis. Still
I remain outside. Finally, since Mr. Ballard
Smith, the London correspondent, is on the point
of retiring, Mr. Pulitzer asks me to take up that
post. I got a note yesterday from Mr. Butes, the
efficient English secretary, asking me to lunch to-
day at Moray Lodge, Campden Hill, where
" J. P." has entrenched himself with his secre-
tariat, which includes Dr. Hosmer, formerly
Editor of the Herald, and David Graham Phillips
[subsequently assassinated in Gramercy Park,
New York, by a madman]. I went to lunch.

65

RJ).B.'s DIARY

"J.P.," Dr. Hosmer, Phillips, Sam Williams,
and myself. " J. P." very petulant because Dr.
Hosmer refused him permission to eat certain
dishes. I sat next to him, and he pelted me with
questions. Talk ranged from metaphysics to
spiritualism, murder trials and police reporting.
A man with a most astonishing range of conversa-
tion. Tall, cadaverous, reddish beard, and hair
growing grey, piercing but dead eyes, long bony
hands : a fascinating yet terrifying figure. He is
not quite blind, but cannot see to read even with
the most powerful glasses.

After lunch " J. P." took me for a drive in a
Victoria. We drove through Kensington to
Chelsea, over Chelsea Bridge to Battersea Park.
All the way he was bombarding me with ques-
tions about the Herald's interior mechanism,
its personalities, its office politics, its revenues,
and so on; and throughout I attempted to
dodge him. He was obviously bent on getting
inside information, and I was bent on not
telling him, even though I am no longer a
Herald man. Eventually, after we had driven
round the park five or six times we came
back into Chelsea.

" You are not very communicative," said Mr.
Pulitzer. "I expect when youVe joined the
World you will be more so. Now when will you
be ready to take over Mr. Ballard Smith's duties
as London correspondent?"

" Excuse me, Mr. Pulitzer," I retorted. " I
66

JUNE, i896-OCTOBER> 1900

have never said I would join your staff. I do not
want to do so."

"Why not, please?" I could see his colour
rising.

" Because I choose not to be on the World? I
answered. " At least not at present."

" J. P." did a characteristic thing. He sat up
straight in the Victoria, lifted his stick, poked the
coachman in the back, and said :

" Stop, please. This gentleman is getting out
here."

So, at the corner of the King's Road I got out
and took a hansom : and that's how I didn't join
the World*

October i, igoo.

Lord Salisbury has no qualms about the elec-
tion. I saw his great, bulky, stooping form
coming down Birdcage Walk, his beard rather
unkempt and his great hat obviously in need of
a brushing. When he saw me he stopped and
waved his old umbrella. "Did you see what
Campbell-Bannerman has said about a Liberal
victory in the offing?" he said. " He isn't usually
so foolhardy. We are going to have a great
majority. I see that Arthur Balfour and Asquith
and Brodrick have all been eulogising Lord
Roberts. So they should. He is a great man,

* Two days later came a letter from " J. P." saying that
as Mr. Ballard Smith was now not leaving there was no
vacancy for me on the World.

67

RJ).B.'s DIARY

but they might have added that he and the soldiers
have caused the election ; not I."

I saw Claude Hay, brother of Lord Kinnoull,
in Dover Street sitting in a large motor-car with
a tonneau body. He informs me he is off to
Leicestershire to help a friend in the election, and
has adopted this novel vehicle as a method of
taking people to the polls. A motor-car maker
tells me that he will not be surprised if motor-
cars are used in future as much as horses. The
Daily Express has issued a warning on the
dangers of motoring, for these machines are not
to be handled on a casual acquaintance. The man
who is taking a precious load of voters to the poll
in support of a candidate ought to be above
suspicion as to sobriety and skill in working the
mechanism.

The wedding of Miss Constance Gore-Booth,
daughter of the late Sir Henry Gore-Booth, to
Count Casimir de Markieviecz, of Poland, at
Marylebone Church, was picturesque. The bride-
groom wore full Russian Court dress, and as he
speaks no English, the bride translated the re-
sponses into Russian for him. She is a clever
but rather erratic girl who prefers to talk Irish
politics.

Lady Londonderry, who is still a great beauty,
came to town to-day from Wynyard. She told
me that she has heard that Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt
has just presented his daughter, the Duchess of
Marlborough, with a cheque for 500,000 dollars

68

OCTOBER, 1900

to celebrate the safe return of the duke from the
war. The new house in Curzon Street which the
duchess is building will soon be finished. Lady
Lu everyone speaks of her thus said, with an
assumed appearance of ruefulness : " I suppose
when the palace is finished my position as hostess
will be challenged." I doubt that. Lady L.'s
position as leader of society will probably never
be taken by anyone.

Beerbohm Tree sends me a note asking if I will
not aid in asking ladies to take off their large
picture hats in the theatre. " They won't mind,
I am sure," he adds. " Women don't mind much
nowadays anyhow what they do in public. Look
at them smoking cigarettes in restaurants !" I do
not find smoking general among women. It is
confined to three kinds, the " smart set," bachelor
girls, and actresses. Mr. Burbidge, of Harrods,
told me the other day that one of his girls was dis-
missed from Harrods for smoking.

I looked in at the Empire last night and saw
some Boer War pictures on the bioscope. They
were very lifelike, and almost free from flicker,
which usually makes these moving pictures so
objectionable.

October 2, 1900.

Sir John Blundell Maple, of Tottenham Court
Road, is not at all pleased at getting in for
Dulwich without a contest in the general election.

69

RJ)JB.'s DIARY

He asserted to me to-day that he had been spoil-
ing for a fight. He had got his familiar fine four-
in-hand all ready to tour the constituency, and I
presume one of his reasons for wanting to face
his electors was that if they questioned him as to
his voting last session he would be ready to
" furnish " explanations.

Lord Carnavon is becoming a public nuisance
as a motor scorcher. He was summoned again
to-day. Clouds of dust as high as the neighbour-
ing trees, said the police witnesses, rose up
as his car whizzed along the road. By careful
timing and measurements the superintendent
calculated the rate of speed at a mile in two and
a half minutes, or twenty-four miles an hour!

Frank Butler, the hon. secretary of the Auto-
mobile Club in Piccadilly, is very angry with the
police. They haled him before the New Romney
magistrates yesterday for scorching in his new
Panhard at eighteen miles per hour; but he got
off.

At the War Office they say that Lieutenant
Claude Lowther, of the Cumberland Yeomanry,
has been recommended for the V.C. for a gallant
action in Natal ; but I do not think he will get it,
for Sir Redvers Buller had a series of rows with
Sir Charles Warren, the ex-Commissioner of
Police, who commanded under Buller, and who
recommended Lowther, and Buller does not agree
with Warren's ideas on most subjects. Young
Mr. Lowther has, I hear, Parliamentary aspira-

70

OCTOBER, 1900

tions, and he should have little difficulty in get*
ting one of the Lowther seats in Cumberland.

Sir Evelyn Wood, the Adjutant-General, who
grows more deaf every day, showed me a sample
of the new bearskin hat of the newly formed Irish
Guards. It has a big blue plume. The regiment
is to be called the 4th Guards Regiment of the
Household Brigade.

When I left the War Office Sir Evelyn came out
of the door with me and whispered that Mr.
Brodrick, the War Secretary [now Earl of
Midleton], was not at all agreeable to the visits
of myself and one or two other editors to the
Adjutant-General's office. In fact, he was arrang-
ing to put in a sort of super-Press agent to whom
all journalists will have to go in future. Sir
Evelyn thinks it will be Colonel Edward Ward
[late Sir Edward], the man who fed Ladysmith
during the siege and whom Lord Roberts
eulogised as "the best supply officer since
Moses." Sir Evelyn says Ward, who is a hand-
some, suave and tactful man, will probably soon
succeed Sir Ralph Knox as permanent secretary.
[He succeeded in 1901.]

The Countess of Warwick writes to me
from Scotland that she declines any longer
to be numbered among the Tory electioneering
workers. She tells her friends that she wants no
more party politics.

Ladies who persist in riding bicycles in long
skirts must expect to get hurt. I saw a hand-

DIARY

some Junoesque figure to-day [Mrs. Sands],
dressed in laces and flounces, riding on a bicycle
in Sloane Street. Her skirt became entangled
and she came down with a crash. My tailor tells
me that women flatly refuse to wear short skirts
for fear of exposing their legs.

October 3, IQOO.

Young Wertheimer, the talented son of Ascher
Wertheimer, the art dealer of Bond Street, had a
Lucullan dinner at his rooms at the Albany last
night all men. Johannes Wolff, the Belgian
violinist, Sarasate, Labouchere, straight from the
election, young Lord Rosslyn, home from Pretoria
after writing a book about it ; George Wyndham,
statesman, Guardsmen, poet ; " Dolly " Teck,
brother of the Duchess of York who will one day
be Queen ; F. W. Pomeroy, who will one day be
a sculptor R.A. ; Whistler, looking very fierce, and
Sargent, the painter. I drove home to Chelsea
with Sargent in a hansom, and he told me that
he had not read a newspaper for six months.
After dinner, old Ascher, who was beaming, came
round and handed us each an enormous cigar,
which must have cost him quite two shillings
apiece,

Henry Arthur Jones came down this afternoon

to tell me that he has hit on a title for his new

play. It is Mrs. Dane's Defence. They have

been making a lot of publicity about this secret.

7*

OCTOBER, 1900

Mr. Wyndham, Mary Moore, and Lena Ashwell
all have fine parts, Jones continues to be the
leading dramatist.

People are complaining that the markets are
overcharging. I went into Smithfield this morn-
ing. They were asking four shillings for long-
tailed pheasants, which is sixpence more than a
year ago, but the market people say there are
reasons. No doubt. We also hear of higher rents.
Digby, the house-agent, told me that there is a
good demand for seven-roomed flats at Ravens-
court Park, electric light, all improvements,
tennis, no taxes, at 50 to 80 a year. He
showed me a sketch of a well-appointed six-room
villa at Edmonton at ten shillings a week. I call
that reasonable.

I had a whole hour with old Sir Hiram Maxim
at lunch to-day at the Cafe Royal. The old man
drank water and ate some sort of fancy bread that
he had in a paper bag. Every now and then he
would suck away at a glass contraption which he
called his anti-asthma pipe. He said he had spent
17,000 in trying to make a flying machine, but
the thing no sooner rose from the ground than it
fell down. As for navigable balloons, he agrees
with the late Duke of Argyll that man can never
overcome the natural laws that condemn all
buoyant bodies to an inertia that makes them use-
less. He does not think Count Zeppelin will have
much success with his forthcoming experiments.
Maxim gets pink in the face when you mention

73

JUX8/J DIARY

his brother Hudson. " He never invented any-
thing/* says the great man, " except a new powder
which blew his arm off. He's trading on my

name/'

October 5, igoo.

I went yesterday to Bermondsey to hear young
Winston Churchill speak after his Tory victory
at Oldham. He spoke in support of Harry Cust,
late editor of the Pall Mall. Churchill is tall and
slight, with brown curly hair, and a boyish face.
He simply radiates self-confidence. He began in
the true Randolphian style, and at once started
to lecture his audience, which was inclined to be
enthusiastic. He likened the Liberal Party to the
hornet; with the head biting the tail, and the tail
stinging the head. The brains of the Liberal
Party were all in the tail. He was getting on
quite nicely in a speech, half his father and half
debating society, when a woman interrupted him,
and he lost his temper. Then he said he never
was in favour of women's suffrage, and the
woman's questions proved that women should
not be entrusted with the vote. Someone booed
him, and he again lost his temper, talked about
" Yahoos," and said it was more dangerous to
face pro-Boers than Boers. Mr. Churchill will,
In time, acquire the habit of disarming inter-
rupters with a smile. He is still new at the game,
but from what I saw of him I think he will never

74

OCTOBER, 1900

be content to be a back-bencher.

These Post Office people are very conservative.
I heard Sir William Preece, the chief engineer of
the Post Office, deliver himself to-day of an un-
equivocal statement that " wireless telegraphy is
not, and cannot be, a commercial success." In
spite of the delicate and interesting experiments
of young Marconi, who is half Italian and half
Irish, Preece held that wireless telegraphy
cannot supersede the present wire system. " It
may be used under exceptional circumstances
by the Army and Navy, but commercially it is
impossible."

Major Arthur Griffiths, who has been governor
of Wormwood Scrubs, came down to tell me the
news of Pall Mall. He knows all the Army
secrets, and has a lot of information, both social
and political, while his wife, Kate Reilly, the
Mayfair dressmaker, keeps him in touch with
affairs feminine. He says that Lieut.-Colonel
Plumer, of Rhodesian fame, is to be made a
brigadier-general in to-night's Gazette. " But,"
says Griffiths, " since he is an infantryman and
not in the hierarchy he'll go no further.'

Lord Iveagh, the great Irish brewer, is
authority for the statement that women clerks
in offices are a great success. He recently tried
the experiment of employing lady clerks on the
staff of the Guinness Brewery, mostly daughters
of employees, and there has been not a single
failure.

RJ)J.'s DIARY

October 6, igoo.

General election and shooting season have
combined to keep people out of town more than
usual at this time of year. But Bond Street is
beginning to fill again. Gilbert Parker, the
novelist, whom I met in Bond Street, had just
come up after winning Gravesend for the Tories.
He defeated young Hildebrand Harmsworth,
Alfred's brother, who had high hopes of success.
Mr. Parker [now the Rt. Hon. Sir Gilbert Parker,
Bart.] is quite the most immaculately dressed
man in town. He now affects a beard and wears
soft silk shirts, even in that temple of sartorial
perfection, the House of Commons. I hear his
book royalties are 7,000 a year, and perhaps
more.

The Liberals are terribly upset at the defeat of
Captain Hedworth Lambton, who did such fine
work with the naval brigade at Ladysmith. New-
castle has rejected him in spite of his fine war
service; but then " Khaki " wins anything now.
Captain Lambton wanted very much to go into
Parliament, but he will probably have to be con-
tent to go to sea again and wait until he retires
as a rear-admiral or the war is forgotten, when, I
am told, he proposes to try again.*

* He did try again as a Unionist in 1916, and succeeded;
and died in 1929 as Admiral of the Fleet Sir Hedworth
Meux.

OCTOBER, 1900

Yerkes, the projector of the new Charing Cross,
Euston, and Hampstead electric underground,
for which he has a charter, said to me that in
spite of the opposition which he meets at every
turn he proposes to go through with it. He has
secured the backing of some large American
financiers to the extent of 30,000,000, and he
predicted to me that a generation hence London
will be completely transformed ; that people will
think nothing of living twenty or more miles from
town, owing to electrified trains. He also thinks
that the horse omnibus is doomed. Twenty
years hence, he says, there will be no horse omni-
buses in London. Although he is a very shrewd
man, I think he is a good deal of a dreamer.
Yerkes also told me that he had just purchased
a Velasquez for his private gallery. He buys
paintings without regard to cost. I drove from
Westminster with him in his private hansom.

One of the Bass people whom I met this
morning gave me the interesting information
that breweries are enormously on the decrease.
Twenty years ago, in 1880, there were 22,000
brewers; now they number 7,000. In 1882
there were 110,000 private brewers; now there
are only 13,000. "Death by strangulation
through the * Tied ' system " is the verdict.

Hichens, the manager of the Empire, told roe
that the music-halls are going to
continue to put on short plays. "
Tivoli," he said, " always crowded

77 ff/V R NA

R.D.B.'s DIARY

stick to their last. This week they have on the
bill such favourites as Vesta Tilley, Vesta
Victoria, Dan Leno, R. G. Knowles, George
Robey, and Harry Lauder. No plays for them."
At lunch to-day, Romano, the restaurant man,
said that claret is becoming almost as cheap as
beer. There has been a great vintage of red wines
in France, and Romano says all sorts of people
are beginning to drink wine. He asserts, too, that
sherry is going out rapidly and port as an after-
dinner drink is becoming more general. My
lunch of four courses, with a bottle of Pommard
there were two of us cost ten shillings ; which
for Romano's is not very dear.

October 7, igoo.

Quite a fair assemblage of people in the Church
parade in the Row to-day, in spite of the cold
wind. Lord William Beresford, V.C., with his
rich American wife, who was Mrs. Hammersley
and afterwards Duchess of Marlborough [step-
mother of the present duke], explained the
reasons for the failure of his fine colt Volodyovski.
He had some fine offers for it, particularly from
James R. Keene, the father of Foxhall Keene,
the young polo player, who comes to London from
New York every season.

A good many politicians in the Park home from
the elections. Mitchell-Thomson [father of the
recent Postmaster-General] introduced me to

78

OCTOBER, 1900

Mr. A. B. Law [Bonar Law], the new MJP. for
the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow, a Canadian
who is in the metal business in Scotland, He says
this is his first plunge into political life. A quiet,
unassuming man, with no trace of a Transatlantic
accent. Mitchell-Thomson says he is a mountain
of common sense, with an uncanny genius for
facts and figures, and that he is a most convincing
speaker.

Mrs. Williamson, who edits the Onlooker, a
society gossip paper, had all the women in the
Row staring at her. She had some sort of con-
traption hooked to her skirt to hold it up, thus
freeing her hands. She explained that the
necessity for holding up the present-day long
skirts affected the wrist. " I know many women,"
she said, " who suffer from * skirt wrist.' "

The CJ.D. people are busy trying to unearth
the gang who gild sixpences to look like half-
sovereigns. There has been a flood of them.
Inspector Froest, who was in the Park, showed
me a handful of them, and Pinkerton, the
American detective, who is here, thinks he knows
the criminals. Half-sovereigns are becoming un-
popular. Only the other night I gave a cabman
two sixpences for his fare from Waterloo Place
to Fleet Street, and I found later that one of them
was half a sovereign. This is a common error
when it is dark.

Mark Twain, who has been living at Dollis
Hill for some months, sails this week for New

79

RJ) .'s DIARY

York. He was buying books at Hatchard's
yesterday, and entertained me with yarns for
twenty' minutes. " I always like to spend time
in bookshops/' he said, " because it reminds me
of my folly in having tried to be a publisher. I
lost 20,000 in Webster and Co., and that
was a good but costly lesson. I went com-
pletely broke/'

He said that the most interesting thing he had
found here was that English lumbago was no
different from American lumbago. Also that
English green cigars are a delusion and a snare.
" I once smoked a piece of bamboo from an old
umbrella rib," he said. " Same thing as English
green cigars/'

October 8, 1900.

Swift MacNeill, the pro-Boer, is in again for
South Donegal; Lloyd George, ditto, has in-
creased his small majority at Carnarvon by 102.
He is thirty-seven years old, but as he is all nerves
and jumps, I doubt if he will stand the racket of
Parliamentary life for long. He has already been
eight years at Westminster, and as he is a
turbulent sort of person he is sure to wear him-
self out soon.

Joe Lyons, who got Salmon and Gluckstein to
embark on his catering business, which is now an
undoubted success, has asked me to lunch with
him at the opening of the new palatial restaurant

So

OCTOBER, 1900

which his firm has built in Throgmorton Street,
by the Stock Exchange. He says you will get a
cut off the joint for tenpence the same as at any
other City restaurant. Joe spends his time
between discussing new palaces and painting
landscapes. He might have become an R.A.

The Secretary of the Board of Trade, Mr.
Llewellyn Smith, is responsible for the state-
ment to-day that the rise in miners' wages is
phenomenal. They have gone up in the past eight
months of this year more than twice as much as in
the whole of last year. Iron and steel, too, are
booming, and wages are going up. But there
cannot always be such a great demand for coal,
and when the wages come down there must be
trouble.

The Rothschild goat which ambles up and
down Piccadilly every afternoon from Seamore
Place to Stratford Street nearly came to grief
to-day. An omnibus horse slipped on the pave-
ment and went down. The goat shied away and
was nearly run over by a passing hansom. The
omnibus-driver said he wouldn't have hurt the
goat for worlds since it might affect the annual
New Year's gift of a brace of pheasants which
Leopold Rothschild sends to every driver and
conductor.

The Rothschild goat is becoming as familiar to
London as the chinaware parrot in the window
of the Baroness Burdett Coutts at Stratford
Street; and apropos of this I note that the

81

R.DJS:* DIARY

baroness, who ia just eighty-six this week, is said
to have given away a million to charity. Her
husband, who was Ashmead-Bartlett, son of a
Princeton, New Jersey, professor, and brother of
Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett [father of the present
Ellis], acted originally as her almoner. Then she
married him ; and Queen Victoria, her old friend,
was very angry because of the disparity in ages.
The baroness was about sixty-five when she was
married.

Mr. Paul Vogel, the secretary of the Waiters'
Union, came down to see me to explain that the
agitation by the waiters in Trafalgar Square was
justified. They have to work from 100 to 115
hours a week "for disgraceful wages, and are
generally treated like dogs." They have also to
hand over a proportion of their tips to the pro-
prietors. Of course, he said, there are exceptions.
The meeting was addressed by the inevitable
Tom Mann, the publican, who urged them
to combine "for the international solidarity
of labour."

October 9, 1900.

One of the reporters who went to Marlborough
House this morning for the departure of the
Prince of Wales for Newmarket says that H.R.H.
looked very tired and old. He wore a remarkable
suit of tweeds and a flaming scarf. He walked out
of the gate, shook hands with a police inspector,
and then crossed with "Monty" Guest, his

82

OCTOBER, 1900

friend, to the Marlborough Club. Then he came
out and entered a brougham and drove off to the
station with Commander Seymour Fortescue.
The Prince has been visiting Queen Victoria at
Balmoral, and shooting with Lord Glenesk, of
the Morning Post, at Glenmuick, where some of
the guests were Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace,
Lady Kilmorey, Mrs. Hope Vere, Mr. Arnold
Morley, Mrs. George Keppel, and the Grand
Duke Michael and Countess Torby.

I had a call from Charles Frohman, the
theatrical impresario, who will soon own half
the theatres in New York and London. He
always comes to see me when he is in London,
and we talk over the old days when he was an
advance agent for Haverly's Minstrels in America
years ago. I first saw him sticking bills on the
wall of my father's newspaper building some-
where in the 'seventies.*

The luckiest man in London is "Tommy
Dewar" [now Lord Dewar], who has won St.
George Vin-the-East by a record majority, and all
through a horse. He has told me the secret. He
had not a chance when he was adopted on short
notice. Straus, the Liberal candidate, wagered
him four to one on himself. One day last week
a deputation of four men, representing Tower
Hamlets costers, waited on Dewar. They were
all dressed up in their best clothes, covered from

* Frohman was drowned in the Lusit&nia disaster in
1915.

83

RJDJ.'s DIARY

head to foot with pearlies. They were not
interested in aliens or deceased wife's sisters, but
wanted to know if Dewar's horse, Forfarshire,
had a chance to win a good race at New-
market. Dewar, being a Scot, was wary. He
lectured them on gambling, but they persisted.
Finally, in desperation, he gave way, and, pledg-
ing them to secrecy, tipped Forfarshire to win.
The next day his agent said that the whole con-
stituency was on Forfarshire. The costers had
spread the tip, and Dewar was in despair. He
was not at all sure of the horse, and if he lost, his
chances of election were worse than ever. Finally,
on Thursday, after a fever of anxiety Dewar
was afraid to open the telegram the horse won
by four lengths, and on Saturday Mr. Thomas
Dewar was enthusiastically elected.

The publishers say that Mr. Kipling's new
book, which is to be called Kim of the Rishti, will
run to a full 100,000 words, which will make a
good, thick book. It ought to settle the question
whether Kipling is capable of writing other than
short stories, since many think that Captains
Courageous was not a good test. His father,
Lockwood Kipling, has done the illustrations as
usual.

Very warm to-day; like midsummer. The

^thermometer outside my window at noon was

seventy-five in the shade, I remember nothing

like this in London for years. All the shop

windows are full of winter furs.

84

OCTOBER, 1900

October 10, /poo.

Six of the Hanoverian cream horses which pull
Her Majesty's State coach were out in the Mall
this morning drawing a brake. They had their
out-riders up, and were evidently practising for
the reception which Queen Victoria proposes to
give to the City Imperial Volunteers on their re-
turn from South Africa in ten days. The Queen
is coming back to town for a few days. She dis-
likes London and Buckingham Palace, which is
becoming very shabby. I am told that Ministers
in attendance at Balmoral have been put to some
heavy cross-examination by Her Majesty on the
question of Kruger's escape from the Transvaal.
The old Boer is sure to have a triumphant recep-
tion in France this month.

Prison management is becoming enlightened.
Mr. Troup, at the Home Office, told me to-day
that convicts are now permitted to retain photo-
graphs of their relatives in their cells.

A strange luncheon party at the Constitutional
Club to-day. Alfred Jones, the Liverpool ship-
owner (Elder Dempster), had his weekly
assembly of all sorts, about a dozen, each in a
different line of business, and he switched off
from one to the other on completely different
subjects with great facility. He told us that in
future everybody would have to eat bananas, for
he has arranged to run fast steamers to and from

85

RJ)JB.'s DIARY

Jamaica, and they will come back packed with
bananas. "Fm going to have them sold off
barrows," says Jones, " and people will become
accustomed to them. It will be a bad day for the
little Canary Islands bananas, which now come
wrapped in cotton wool, and are only seen in shop
windows and at dinner parties."

My tailor, old X , in Hanover Square, had

the telephone put in last week. So to-day I gave
him a great shock. I rang him up and asked him
to send me my bill. " I hope there's nothing
wrong," he faltered. " Nothing," I said, " except
that you have not sent me my bill for a year, and
I want to settle up." " But, sir," he pleaded,

" I'm sure " I hung up the receiver. It

must have worried him terribly, for he came
down to Fleet Street this afternoon, looking like
a duke, and begged me to tell him what was
wrong, and he hoped I was not leaving him. I
could not satisfy him that all I wanted was my
bill. He went away quite unhappy at my
idiosyncrasy. He can do with long credits, for
he charges six guineas for a lounge suit
and thirty-five shillings for extra trousers;
which, even for Hanover Square, is none
too cheap.

October 12, ipoo.

I had lunch to-day in Berkeley Square at Alfred
Harmsworth's [afterwards Viscount Northcliffe].

86

OCTOBER, 1900

Mr. Joseph Choate, the American Ambassador,
was there, and we discussed rich men. He said
Andrew Carnegie was worth probably from
15,000,000 to 20,000,000, and Rockefeller,
of the Standard Oil, probably as much. Harms-
worth thought the Czar of Russia was richer, and
he believed Cecil Rhodes would one day be the
greatest Croesus of all, since his development of
the great territories in Africa was bound to pour
millions into his pocket no matter how extrava-
gant he might be. Hugh Spottiswoode, the
Queen's printer, who was also present, said
Morrison, the City financier, an unknown man,
whose liame was unfamiliar to all of us, was
probably! richer in solid money than any of these.
[Morrisdn eventually left ten millions.] Kennedy
Jones, wiio is a partner of Harmsworth's, and
whom I Inew in 1890 as a poor reporter, on very
small par, stated that in his opinion Whitaker
Wright, the great company promoter, was likely
to prove wealthier than all the others.*

One of the actresses at the Criterion last night
wore a pan: of white stockings in the new fashion
which the French have been vainly attempting to
establish this year. Women tell me they will
never givefup black stockings, which suit them so
well. Thly do not mind the open-work or the
daintily epbroidered black, preferably silk, but

* Wright! was a bankrupt within a couple of years, and
committed stncide in court aftdr being sentenced to penal
servitude.

8?

RJ)3.'s DIARY

black it must be unless it be brown, and then only
with tan shoes.

Captain "Tucker" Gray, of the Syth (Royal
Irish Fusiliers) , who is an adjutant of Volunteers
[now Territorials] at Hounslow, came in to see
me at home this morning, minus his moustache*
I expressed surprise at an Army officer in this
disguise, and he showed me a letter from his
brigadier calling attention to the breach of the
rule which requires moustaches to be worn. The
brigadier added : " I don't think it is nice for

officers to go about looking like acto
has started growing it again, unlike

*." He
Captain

" Roddy " Owen, who won the Grand I fational.
Owen shaved his moustache, and was ore ered not

to appear again moustacheless on parad

next day he rode out in front of his i

so the

quadron

decorated with an enormous false red dbustache
like a fox's brush.

At the Cafe Royal the old lady is talking about
removing the red plush lounges and replacing
them with chairs; which will be baa, for the
charm of this place has been its foreign aspect.
One misses the French refugees, suth as old
Henri Rochefort, who used to come* in every
afternoon and write his leader for Ulntransi-
geant, and then send it across the street to be

telegraphed to Paris. When M. Nicol

presided,

there was always a coterie of celebrities like Oscar
Wilde, Whistler, Sir Arthur Sullivan, aid George
Augustus Sala. I was discussing this to [-day with

88

OCTOBER, 1900

Charlie Mitchell, whose fight with John L.
Sullivan I witnessed at Chantilly a dozen years
ago. He and Eugene Stratton, the minstrel who
sings negro songs across the way in Prince's Hall,
at Moore and Burgess' Minstrels (his real name
is Ruhlman), were sipping absinthe and lament-
ing the falling away of the literary and artistic
element from the red benches ! Stratton says that
"Pony" Moore, the old minstrel, is now over
eighty, but is still hearty in the Finchley Road,
where he keeps a private bar in his house free to
all visitors.

October 13, igoo.

On the box seat of a Hampstead-bound Atlas
omnibus to-day the old driver was lamenting the
fact that so many good horses have been taken
away for the war, and that there is no joy in
driving the indifferent cattle which now draw the
omnibuses. He says his regular box seat
customers, who pay a tip of a shilling a week for
a reserved seat beside him, are falling away. The
young men prefer bicycles nowadays, or hansoms,
and the old men do not like climbing up and down
now that the omnibuses are so much larger.

The result of Captain Elliot Cairnes' exposures
of the ignorance of Army officers in the profession
of arms, which has been so apparent in South
Africa, is found in the new order, which provides
more educational work and less play on the part

89

:* DIARY

of officers. The whole system is to be revised, and
there will be some drastic weeding out of incom-
petents. The War Office in Pall Mall is, I hear,
soon to be torn down, and will remove to the new
building in Whitehall. [The Automobile Club
stands there now.] Sir Ralph Knox told me to-
day that they are now devoting themselves
seriously to the practical consideration of the use
of auto-cars in warfare. Lord Roberts is behind
this from his experience in South Africa.

I had a note to-day from my old chief, James
Gordon Bennett, of the New York Herald, asking
me to meet him at the St. James's Hotel [now
Berkeley], So I went to see him. He was
enthusiastic about a new yacht of 1,500 tons,
which is to put the proposed new yacht of Joseph
Pulitzer in the shade. Anything that Pulitzer, of
the World, does, stirs Bennett to rivalry. Bennett
is going to have all his lights in the form of owls'
heads (his motto is " La nuit porte conseil " the
night brings counsel), and there will be a sea-
going cow. He also said that he had ordered a
5O-horse-power Napier automobile, and that
Charles Rolls, S. F, Edge, Lord Carnarvon, Mark
Mayhew, and Count Zborowski [the elder] had
done likewise. What they will do with these
monsters in England I do not know, for they will
not be permitted to go beyond the twelve-mile
limit.

I asked Moss, the music-hall impresario, if it
was true that he is heading a group of managers

9

OCTOBER, 1900

to check the high salaries now demanded by
music-hall stars. He denied it, and said that
though salaries were too high they have to be paid.
Ada Reeve, for instance, receives as much as
150 a week.

October 14, IQOO.

The fashion writers in the office are agitated
about the suggestion that women's skirts should
be shorter. They have gone about interviewing
the managers of the great shops, and they are all
against it. I have received a note from Paquin
on this subject to the effect that short skirts are
" ungraceful and unbecoming, and so distinctly
inconvenient." He says that the skirt two inches
off the ground is all right for dry weather, as it
leaves both hands free, but not so in muddy
weather. Dare to leave it alone and it hangs full
and heavy at the back, gathers in all the rain and
mud, sweeping wet and uncomfortable round the
ankles. Attempt to hold it up and it is too short
to reach with any comfort, and becomes most
tiring with the twist and drag of it, whereas a
really long skirt is lightly thrown over the wrist
or arm, and gives no further trouble. The short
skirt, to be safely left alone in muddy weather,
says this fashion dictator, needs to be at least
six inches off the ground ; and who dares to wear
it!

At the Savoy to-day little Tod Sloan, the

&DJB.'* DIARY

American jockey, who introduced the new style
of crouching in the saddle, had a large luncheon
party of all sorts. He deports himself like a
plutocrat, which he probably is, for he has made
a great deal of money, most of which, I am told,
he puts away. These American jockeys, Sloan
and John and Lester Reiff, manage to lead most
of their British colleagues in winning mounts.

The German newspapers continue to fan the
anti-British flame in Berlin. Every surrender
of five or six Yeomanry is heralded as a great
Boer victory, and the newspaper offices, where
war bulletins are displayed, have great cheering
crowds in front of their windows. I asked Baron
Eckhardstein, the counsellor of the German
Embassy, to-day, why their newspapers carry on
this pernicious propaganda. He said it was diffi-
cult to stop it; that the Emperor was most
friendly, and that, after all, reports of pro-Boer
feeling in Germany were exaggerated. From
what I know of the iron hand of the German
Government on its Press, I am not convinced by
the baron's explanation. He was rather nervous
about it, and appeared to be anxious to show that
Germany was really pro-British, which she is not.

Housewives are complaining that the General
Election is interfering with game shooting so
much that game has become dear. Grouse and
partridge are four shillings a brace, old birds
2s. 6d. a brace, widgeon cost is. 6d. apiece, and
wild duck is. 9d. to 2s. Fish, however, is quite

92

OCTOBER, 1900

cheap. Fine soles are is. 4cL a pound, cod and
haddock 6d. Tomatoes are 4<i. a pound.

Dr. Conan Doyle, who has done fine work with
the ambulances in South Africa, is consumed
with wrath at his defeat in the Edinburgh elec-
tion. He was going strong when some Radical
enemy put out a poster saying that " Conan
Doyle is a Roman Catholic and a Jesuit. He
wants to undermine the Church of Scotland."
That did it.

October 15, 1900.

As I came through the Temple this afternoon
I met Mr. Haldane, Q.C., who has just been re-
turned as a Liberal for Haddingtonshire. He was
described yesterday by a fellow-barrister as " that
distressingly respectable young man from Scot-
land." He is said to be a most effective pleader
at the Parliamentary bar, but there is too much
of the dry-as-dust lawyer about him ever to make
him popular as a politician. [The late Viscount
Haldane, ex-Lord Chancellor.]

The gossips say that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach,
"Black Michael," is about to retire from the
Cabinet. He has been a great success as Chan-
cellor, but his eyesight is troubling him and his
temper is becoming worse than ever. I had occa-
sion to go to him with a delegation some months
ago, and he treated us like boys and interrupted
every one with a short and sharp: "Well, get

93

RJ).B.'s DIARY

on with it," or * I know all about that. Go on/'
The old Duchess of Devonshire, the " double
duchess/ 1 who is a most assiduous whist player,
is ill again, and I have arranged to have her
obituary notice brought up to date in case of
emergency. She has come to Devonshire House
from the country. She is a wonderful old woman,
who rules her set with a heavy hand. With Lady
Londonderry, the Duchess of Portland and the
Marchioness of Lansdowne, she has led social
England without question. Sir Henry Calcraft,
who ran the Board of Trade for years as per-
manent secretary, told me that he knew her well
when she first came to London some forty years
ago as the beautiful and accomplished, but poor,
daughter of Count von Alten, a Hanoverian
soldier who was attached to one of the German
legations here. When she married Lord Mande-
ville, afterwards Duke of Manchester, she was
one of the most popular girls in London. She
married her second duke, still a bachelor, about
nine years ago, after a devoted friendship cover-
ing a period of many years since they were young.
London keeps on growing. To-day's figures of
population are surprising. The Metropolis has
4,210,000 people, which is almost a million more
than ten years ago. The expansion to the north
" and west is rapid. New streets everywhere. The
Cricklewood neighbourhood, for instance, will
soon lose its sylvan aspect. You cannot now ride
cross country at Finchley with any ease. Every-

9*

OCTOBER, 1900

body wants to come to London; and little
wonder, since the rural districts are all more or
less dead, with no prospect of revival.

A characteristic note from Charles Warner v
who never appears to grow older, thus : " Come
down this week to the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton,
and see your old friend Charles Warner, the cele-
brated actor, in his so many thousandth appear-
ance as Coupeau in Charles Readers Moral
Drama ' Drink/ with all the original effects, fight
with real water, realistic scaffold accident, etc.
And we conclude with 'Slasher and Crasher, 1
which will amuse you. George Alexander and W.
H. Vernon both came one day last week. I let
myself go for them and they both say they were
thrilled."

October 16, igoo.

Alfred Harmsworth [afterwards Viscount
Northcliffe] came into my room at the Daily
Mail office a couple of days ago [this was before
I came to the Daily Express] and said : " There
is nothing I would like better in all the world
than to obtain control of The Times. I do not
think they are getting on too well over there, and
they might like to sell. If I went to them they
would at once refuse me. Will you make them
an offer instead? You know the Walters, and
they may care to deal with you. Pve got a
million pounds in Consols, and I authorise you

95

.'s DIARY

to play up to that sum. It will be a great coup
if you can get it." So I went to Printing House
Square and saw Mr. Godfrey Walter, with whom
I had done considerable business in the past in
the way of new typesetting machinery, and with-
out beating about the bush made him an offer for
control of The Times. He looked, and was sur-
prised. I told him to consult his brother Arthur,
the senior member of the family, and he agreed
to let me know. As I went out he said somewhat
naively: "You are now associated with Harms-
worth, aren't you?" I did not deny the soft im-
peachment. This afternoon I received a nice
note from Mr. Godfrey Walter, saying he had dis-
cussed the matter of my visit in the proper
quarter, and he regretted, etcetera. Alfred
Harmsworth is disappointed, but he says:
" Never mind. We'll get it sooner or later." *

My cab came down on the slippery pavement
of St. James* Street to-day, and I cut my hand
in the broken glass of the front. This street is
perhaps the most dangerous in London, for it is
very steep, and when it rains there is no foothold
for the poor horses. Old cabmen avoid it when
they can. The trouble is accentuated by the fact
that the street is only sanded occasionally when
there are royal processions or outings. Otherwise,

* He actually acquired control in 1908, after Arthur
Pearson's disastrous " deal," which was ruined at the last
moment by the intervention of Moberley Bell, the manager
of The Times.

96

OCTOBER, 1900

unlike the other main thoroughfares, no sand or
gravel is ever spread on its slippery surface. Sir
Eyre Massey Shaw, the ex-chief of the Fire
Brigade" Oh, Captain Shaw," of the "cold
cascade " vide, Gilbert and Sullivan had a bad
tumble in a hansom on Saturday in front of
Boodle's. Fortunately the window was up, or he
would have been badly cut.

October 17, igoo.

Mr. W. T. Stead came back from Paris to-day,
and called to say that he had been terribly
maligned in a flood of letters and postcards from
people who protest against his utterances at a
peace meeting in Paris, where he is reported to
have said that he was ashamed of being an Eng-
lishman. He was particularly hurt at a remark of
Sir John Gorst's, that most Englishmen were of a
similar opinion since they, too, were ashamed
that he was an Englishman. Stead was buzzing
away with a full-speed-ahead idea of a newspaper
which he would like to found with the object of
combating militarism, and to have all the nations
united on this policy. But he is afraid the blood
lust in nations is too strong for him. A most
amiable idealist.

Clement Scott, autocrat of the theatres for a
generation, the man who has made and unmade
theatrical reputations with a few lines in the
Daily Telegraph, showed me the prospectus for

97

RJ).B.'s DIARY

his new paper, which he has registered at Somer-
set House as " Free Lance, Limited." The capital
is 50,000, which shows that Scott means busi-
ness. He proposes to buy the best talent, and
from what I know of this energetic man he will
make deep inroads in the circulations of Truth
and Vanity Fair and the World. It will probably
be a great and lasting success. 41

Wilson Barrett, the actor, who has a voice like
an oboe, was in town to-day, after a strenuous
week at Nottingham, where, he says, the gallery
annoyed him every night with cat-calls. He was
playing "Quo Vadis." On Saturday night, he
says, he went before the curtain and gave
Nottingham a bit of his mind. He told the audi-
ence that Nottingham was a byword with great
artists like himself, owing to the incessant inter-
ruptions. " The next time I go to Nottingham,"
he says, " I shall play behind a net like the late
James Owen O'Connor, the Shakespearean
actor/ and so avoid the inevitable shower of
oranges and eggs."

A strange sight at the corner of Piccadilly and
Bond Street. There, before all the world, was
"Joe" Chamberlain leaning out of a hansom,
talking to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the
Liberal leader. " C.-B." was shaking his well-
-dressed sides with laughter, and the Colonial
Secretary actually smiled. A week ago they were
fighting each other in the election like wild cats.

+Fre* Lance did not last many months before it expired,
98

OCTOBER, 1900

There is not much to laugh about in " C.-B/s "
camp. So far the new House of Commons has
334 Conservatives and sixty-seven Irish Union-
ists, as against 187 Liberals, seventy-three
Nationalists, and nine Parnellites, which makes
a substantial Government majority of 132.
Liberals are trying a new tack. Mr. R. W. Perks,
the solicitor [afterward Sir Robert Perks, " Im-
perial Perks "], is forming a new Imperial Liberal
party, and he has roped in Lord Rosebery, Sir
Edward Grey, Mr. Asquith, and Sir Henry
Fowler.

October 19, 1900.

Coming through Nevilles Court to Shoe Lane
after lunch I was stopped by Keir Hardie, the ex-
miner M.P., who lives in the little lane now
hallowed by memories of Lovelace and Sir Walter
Raleigh. Hardie said : " Come in, I want to show
you a great curiosity." In his nearby rooms
the little man produced a paper box from which
he drew a dingy old tweed fore-and-aft hat.
" There," he said, holding it up, " That hat ought
to be put away in the South Kensington Museum.
It is famous. It's the hat I wore eight years ago,
when I first entered the House of Commons. As
I walked in, the whole mass of fine old English
gentlemen in frock coats and silk hats rose up and
yelled at me. One of them reached out to tear
the hat from my head, but I held on in spite of

99

RJDJ.'s DIARY

them. It was the first time the House had been
desecrated sartorially like that. But times are
changing. I have since seen Lor-r-d R-r-r-obert
Cecil come into the House in a shabby old soft
hat much less attractive than my old deer-
stalker." Keir Hardie is a strange little, vain
little, honest fanatic, and he has great hopes of
his Independent Labour Party's future.

Supper last night in Beerbohm Tree's room at
the top of Her Majesty's Theatre, in celebration
of the successful rehearsals of Stephen Phillips'
" Herod," which promises to be a theatrical sensa-
tion at the end of this month. Tree in great anec-
dotal form. Miss Bateman, Miss Eleanor Cal-
houn, Miss Maude Jeffreys, and C. W. Somerset,
who have parts, were there; also Alfred Roths-
child, Paul M. Potter, who adapted " Trilby " for
the stage, and Clyde Fitch, the American play-
wright. Stephen Phillips, who was an actor,
promises to become the great stage poet of this
era.*

The Humanitarian League have been sending
appeals to the newspapers to-day asking support
for their campaign against the Royal Buck-
hounds. They are going to call on Lord Salis-
bury this week and ask him to abolish them. It
looks as if this ancient pack will have to go, sooner
-or later, though Queen Victoria stoutly declines
to interfere. But no successor has been appointed

* He died some years later at Brighton, in poor and tragic
circumstances.

100

OCTOBER, 1900

to Lord Coventry as master. The Buckhounds
have existed since 1366. The mastership used
to be hereditary. It was held for nearly 250 years
by the family of Brocas, who came from France,
and they finally sold it to Sir Lewis Watson,
afterwards Lord Rockingham. One of the prin-
cipal duties of the mastership is to allocate tickets
for the royal enclosure at Ascot. The Humani-
tarian people say that this could just as well be
done by the Lord Chamberlain's department and
that it is not enough excuse for the torture of
stags in Windsor Park.*

October 20, 1900.

Colonel French [afterwards Earl of Ypres]
who is looked upon as the most energetic cavalry
leader in existence a fitting successor to Sheri-
dan and Longstreet has now been gazetted a
major-general in the Army. He is a local
lieutenant-general in South Africa. His rise to
fame is phenomenal. Few people know him in
Pall Mall, but the cavalrymen all swear by him as
a dare-devil, hard-riding, hard-swearing soldier,
with views of his own. The elusive De Wet paid
him a high tribute the other day, when he
said he always looks to his next day's fodder

*The Royal Buckhounds, which hunted in Windsor
Great Park, were abolished in 1901, after Queen Victoria's
death. Lord Coventry, who is still alive, was the last
master.

IOI

RJ)JS.*s DIARY

supply when French is about. I hear there is
friction between French and Kitchener and that
Lord Roberts is inclined to side against the hero
of Khartoum. I heard to-day at the War Office
that there is no truth in the story that Lord
Roberts has refused to come home to be Com-
mander-in-Chief unless he has a free hand. He
has made no conditions. There is also a strong
report that the old Duke of Cambridge, who was
deposed by Lord Wolseley five years ago, is try-
ing to have a finger in the pie again.

Telephone message from Oscar Hammerstein,
the American opera house builder, wanting a
reporter to interview him on the opera. He says
he has just seen Patti and offered her a fabulous
sum for another the hundredth farewell tour,
but the old lady is too comfortable at Craig-y-
Nos, her Welsh castle, to risk anything like a pro-
tracted tour. She says she is tired of " Home,
Sweet Home," which she invariably has to sing
as an encore; had to sing it again in London this
week. Hammerstein told me yesterday of his
Manhatton Opera House venture in 34th Street,
New York, which began with opera, changed over
to drama with Mrs. Bernard Beere in " As in a
Looking Glass," and ended as a music hall and
drinking place. " First," he said, " it was Meyer-
beer. No good. Then it was Bernard Beere.
'Also no good. Now it is Lager Beer. Great
success !"

At Charbonnel's in Bond Street, where

101

OCTOBER, 1900

young people go to drink chocolate, I saw old Sir
Tatton Sykes with his famous spouse* He was,
as usual, bundled up with three greatcoats and a
muffler^ although it was not cold, and the ener-
getic Jessica, by way of contrast, was content with
a big ostrich feather boa over her tightly laced
"tailor-made" costume. Her sylph-like waist
must be the envy of many young girls. The old
baronet has written a book called Sidelights on
the War, and her ladyship whispers aside that he
knows more about yearlings he breeds blood-
stock at Sledmere than warfare although he
was once a cavalry officer. Sir Tatton owns about
37,000 acres in Yorkshire, and he says that in
another generation land will not be worth owning.

October 21, 1900.

Eliza Carter, one of the " flower girls " who has
sat by the fountain in the middle of Piccadilly
Circus for many years, has written a letter to
Lord Warwick asking him to give her the name of
a good solicitor. Lord Warwick has bought a
button-hole from her daily for a long time, and
this is her excuse for writing. A man stopped at
the fountain on Friday and asked her if she was
Eliza Carter, and she did not deny it. " Well,"
he said, " your uncle has died in Texas and has
left you a million dollars (' I think he said
dollars, 9 adds Eliza, 'but he may have said
pounds ') . Give me five pounds,** he says, " and

103

RJ)Jf. 9 s DIARY

I will collect the will for you." Then Eliza con-
tinues : " I would not trouble your lordship, but
the man showed me a paper all covered with
sealing-wax and ribbons, and my name in red ink
in big letters and all, and my uncle's name, but
I did not know I had him. I have seen too much
in Piccadilly in my time to lose my head even over
a million, so if your lordship will help me to a
good solicitor 111 be obliged to your lordship."

At the Savage Club I heard two new views of
London. Louis Becke, the novelist of the Pacific
Ocean, said he felt more lost and lonely in London
than he ever did on the loneliest of South Sea
Islands, and George Ade, the author of Fables in
Slang, asserted that Cockney English was the
most expressive, the most musical and the most
attractively slangy of all the slangy languages in
the world. " How many languages do you
know?" asked Weedon Grossmith, the painter-
actor: " None," answered Ade.

Mr. Dowie, the American evangelist, tells his
audiences that London is the wickedest city the
world has ever known, and that it becomes more
ribald and drunken every day. He knows nothing
about it. I have frequently noticed that London
improves year by year. It is a perfect fairyland
compared with ten years ago. I remember when
Tottenham Court Road and the Strand were im-
possible after eight p.m. I walked with D'Oyly
Carte from the Grand Hotel at Charing Cross at
nine o'clock last night (Saturday), as far as

104

OCTOBER, igoo

Savoy Hill, always the worst part of the Strand.
We counted only nine men and five women who
were unsteady with drink, and in not one in-
stance were we molested; which shows that
London is improving instead of going backward.
Sir Thomas Lipton proposes to have a second
try for the America Cup with his yacht Sham-
rock. I saw him in the Park to-day with Arbuckle,
the American coffee and sugar king. Lipton said
Shamrock was " hoodooed " by the Americans.
" They put something in the water so that I could
not win." "What was it, please?" asked
Arbuckle. "The Columbia" answered Sir
Thomas, always ready with his little joke.

October 22, igoo.

These cold nights are bad for the outsleepers
on the Embankment. There are not enough
benches to accommodate the large number of
homeless, shivering people. I stopped my cab
on my way home early this morning to observe
a Salvation Army official who was distributing
soup tickets. He told me that his average dis-
tribution of tickets on his beat from Blackfriars
to Westminster is 200 tickets between midnight
and two o'clock, and there is a fair sprinkling of
women and children. They would have a
terrible time bad enough as it is but for the
Salvation Army. I do not gain much favour
when I proclaim, as I often do, that General

105

.'; DIARY

Booth is one of the greatest men of the Victorian
era.

Carl Haag, the old water-colour painter, who
taught Queen Victoria and has made a fortune
from his art, informs me that he is going to return
to Germany, which he left many years ago, and
proposes to end his days in a restored castle on
the Rhine. He intends, however, to continue
sending his pictures for exhibition at the Water
Colour Society. Haag says that in his view the
vogue of water colours has temporarily, at least,
come to an end. The new type of houses which
are now being built do not lend themselves to
mural embellishment, and the rich City mer-
chants who for the past forty years have patron-
ised water-colour art so that it has become as
fine as that of the Georgian oil painters, are going
in for portraits and coloured mezzotints. " But,"
he says, " fifty years or so from now the Victorian
water colours of to-day will be in great demand,
and the possessors of Herkomers, MacWhirters,
Danbys, David Coxs, and Tophams will receive
great fortunes for their specimens. They are a
splendid ' lock-up.' "

Charles Wyndham, the actor, and his brother-
in-law Bronson Howard, the playwright, who
wrote Brighton, The Henrietta, and Shenandoah,
were in fine form anecdotally between the acts
last night at Wyndham's Theatre. I urged
Wyndham to write his experiences as a surgeon
in the Northern Army during the American

106

OCTOBER, zpoo

Civil War in the 'sixties. He told of a surgeon
who had an original way of performing opera-
tions. There were no anaesthetics. If it was a bad
case requiring a quiet patient, the gentle surgeon
just hit the victim a tap on the head with an iron
bar, knocked him senseless, and then proceeded
to cut off his arm or his leg. Sometimes the shock
was fatal, but the inventive surgeon maintained
that it was generally successful and much kinder,
and the operation was more easily conducted.

October 23, igoo.

There is a good opportunity for police inter-
ference in Holywell Street, that dingy old Eliza-
bethan thoroughfare with its overhanging fronts,
which runs from St. Clement Danes at the Law
Courts, with Wych Street, into the slum district
of the Bill Sikes country. I came through there
to-day as far as the old Globe Theatre at New-
castle Street, and its shop windows were besieged
by a crowd of clerks in their mid-day rest hour.
These windows and front shelves are packed with
vicious and gaudy literature, and other material,
whose sort is hardly to be matched in the lowest
quarters of Paris. If it were not for the further
advertisement which this noxious old street were
to receive, and thus increase its clientele, I should
expose it in print. There are also one or two
shops with good old books. Colonel Howard
Vincent, who was head of the C.I.D. at Scotland

107

R.D.B.'s DIARY

Yard, says they once tried to clean out the vicious
stands, but never succeeded, and now they have
given it up because they hope that when the
County Council gets to work on its improvements
between the Strand and Holborn, Holywell Street
and Wych Street must necessarily be included.
Norman Shaw, the architect, told me the other
day that he had been consulted on the scheme.
He wants to make a great boulevard and base it
on an ornamental circle opposite Somerset
House, but he does not think it will ever come
to pass.*

Musical comedy has, doubtless, come to stay
for a long time, and melodrama, which has now
reigned for a generation or two, must take a back
seat. Here is George Edwardes announcing the
anniversary of San Toy at the Gaiety. Who
would have dreamed of such a thing ten years
ago ! Edwardes believes that " San Toy " is a
lucky name. He has named one of his racehorses
after it, and I was glad to hear to-day that the
piece has also brought a great deal of money to
Edward Morton, its talented author, t

The syndicate of London dealers who, through
M. Duprez, paid 13,200 to Prince Chigi, of
Rome, for the famous Botticelli picture of the
Virgin and Child got their prize away just in

* This was the inception of the present Aldwych.

f Morton's son, J. B. Morton, is an equally talented
writer, now on the staff as " Beachcomber " of the Daily
Express.

108

OCTOBER, 1900

time. The Italian Government, which prohibits
the sale of old masters, was caught napping, but
I am informed that Prince Chigi is to be prose-
cuted, and if the facts are as stated, he will not
only be minus his Botticelli, but the 13,200 as
well.

I have just noticed a new form of night adver-
tisement. It consists of boards with prepared
surfaces, capable of conducting an electric
current. You can arrange any number of letters,
attached to the current, and spell out words.
They will be useful in front of theatres for, say
" House Full " and other announcements, and the
idea has great possibilities.

October 24, 1900.

Rapid changes are coming over London. By
and by there will be no private residences in
Piccadilly, where once there were only residences.
The transfer of the Isthmian Club from Walsing-
ham House, opposite Devonshire House, to the
fine bow-fronted residence of the late Sir Julian
Goldsmid, next to the St. James* Club, marks
another loss of a private mansion. Further up a
new imperial service club is soon to occupy No.
1 10. It has exchanged all the fine old Georgian
mahogany furniture with Maple's for modern
chests and chairs. If " Old Q." (Queensberry)
were alive now he would bemoan the coming
destruction of his favourite balcony, from which

109

.** DIARY

he used to ogle the ladies. The Bath Hotel, be-
loved of county families, will soon be coming
down, and with it will disappear the nightly
candles and the tin baths that are carried into
bedrooms every morning. There is presently to
be a new hotel [the Ritz] to cover the site of the
Bath and Walsingham House.

There was a card of invitation this morning
for the Automobile Club's run from London to
Southsea, on November 10. It promises to be a
momentous affair. Over twenty-five vehicles
have already been entered. Every effort, say the
managers, will be made to ensure an orderly pro-
cession, and no car will be permitted to pass the
pilot between London and the south side of Esher
Hill. The cars will enter Portsmouth in line.
Several manufacturing firms are offering seats at
a reasonable price, so that those who would like
to experience the joys of motoring for the first
time may have an excellent opportunity.

Julian Ralph, the famous war correspondent,
entertained us in the office to-day with his recent
experiences in Africa. He said : " If you see dust
on the veldt it's smoke ; if you see smoke it's dust ;
if you see smoke low down and high up it's a
farm well on fire, so you need not hurry; there
is no chance of loot. ... If you see a galloping
Boer, it's nothing. You never see Boers and they
don't gallop. If a trooper brings you specimens
of Boer dum-dum ballets that he has picked up
on the veldt, don't pay any attention. They are

no

OCTOBER, /poo

probably used up soda-water Sparklets left behind
by one of our officers' messes/ 9

Had a note this evening from Maida Vale that
Robert Buchanan has had a paralytic stroke and
is not expected to live. I suppose the old play-
wright's quarrel with Mrs. Langtry over his play
"Marie Antoinette," which she bought from him
has upset him, since she has now commissioned
a Frenchman to write one on the same subject
for production at her Imperial Theatre, West-
minster. [Now the site of the Wesleyan Central
Hall.]

October 26, 1900.

Poor old Sims Reeves is dead at last. The
news came in this afternoon and we shall never
again hear him sing " Come into the Garden,
Maud." I heard him sing it a year or so ago at an
Empire matinee. His fine tenor voice was a voice
no longer, but he got a great ovation. He began
over sixty years ago. Old Colonel Mapleson once
told me that as far back as 1847 he heard Reeves
sing Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, "and
believe me or not, I was so affected that I cried."
I was not quite sure how he meant this, but there
is no doubt that Sims Reeves was the greatest
ballad singer of this century. He had a Civil List
pension of 100, and a new wife whom he
married five years ago, at the age of seventy-
seven. He was taken ill in a provincial hotel. A

in

RJ).B.'s DIARY

young girl came in to nurse him, and out of grati-
tude he married her.

Shopkeepers in the Burlington Arcade are
again complaining about the obstruction caused
at the Piccadilly entrance by the young bloods
from Tufnell Park and Acton and Tooting Bee,
who congregate there after five o'clock in the
afternoon, all dressed up in frock coats, highly
polished hats and lavender gloves. They stand
tightly wedged together leaning on their gold and
silver-mounted sticks, looking bored and imagine
that they give the impression to passers-by that
they are all heirs to peerages and great estates and
are just out for an airing. This afternoon I saw
young X., one of our clerks, in the languid
group. Now I know why he is always so anxious
to get away before five. A strange fad.

One of Jabez Balfour's white elephants, the
Hotel Cecil, which he built with Liberator money,
is justifying itself by making profits. I have just
had the company's annual report. When the new
Strand front is finished it will be one of the finest
hotels in Europe. The new front will cost
400,000, and it will replace a lot of ramshackle
houses that used to cluster round what, until
recently, was Cecil Street.

" Jack " Joel, one of the Barnato firm, made a
bet of 25 recently that Mr. George Howard, a
stockbroker, weighing ijst. 7lb., would carry Mr.
Douglas MacRae, a City journalist, weighing
1 3 St., one hundred yards in Throgmorton Street.

112

OCTOBER, 1900
t

There was, however, such a crowd that the effort
was abandoned, but Mr. Joel gave a consolation
dinner at the Carlton Hotel last night, the like
of which has not been served in London since the
famous Phillips dinner at the Savoy, when the
fruit was served direct from' the trees and the bill
was 15 per plate. Mr. Joel's was, I hear, 10
each.

October 27, 1900.

Mr. Chamberlain has gone for a Mediterranean
cruise, accompanied by his son Austen, who is a
Civil Lord at the Admiralty. They will arrive
to-day at Marseilles, to go aboard H.M.S. Casar.
By a strange coincidence, Oom Paul Kruger is
expected to arrive there to-day on board the
Dutch cruiser Gelderland after his flight from
Pretoria. It would be funny if the two protagon-
ists met on " neutral " ground.

Poor old General George Cox, who walks about
London with nothing to do, is a fine example of
how the War Office muddled things when the war
began. He was a most efficient soldier in com-
mand of the troops in Natal, and for three years
exercised them and manoeuvred them over all the
ground where the first fighting occurred. He
knew every yard of the Elandslaagte-Spion-Kop-
Ladysmith country. A week before war broke
out he was relieved " on account of age " he is
a little over sixty-one and was ordered home with
his staff ! Strangers took his place and Lady*

"3

RJ)JB.'s DIARY

smith was bottled up. Not once has General Cox
been sent for to go to Pall Mall to be consulted
and yet he knew all about the country in which so
many disasters have occurred in the past ten
months.

Enormous crowds in the streets all day expect-
ing the arrival of the City Imperial Volunteers,
(C.I.V.), on their return from the war, but they
were doomed to disappointment, for the Aurania
has been detained by fog and did not arrive at
Southampton. Much disappointment because
the Queen has not come to London from Bal-
moral to greet them.

I was nearly suffocated to-day in an Inner
Circle steam train between Sloane Square and
the Temple. The carriage was filled with sul-
phurous smoke and my fellow-passengers in the
packed compartment coughed incessantly. Some
day the electrification plans of this stuffy line may
be completed, but in the meantime the smoke
nuisance is most trying.

Lord Rosebery, of whom it was said that he
has three great achievements to his credit the
Derby, the Premiership, and the richest bride
announces his withdrawal from the Turf. One of
his horses, Caterham Lad, sold at Newmarket
yesterday for 1,200 guineas and others fetched
from 260 guineas upward. The total was 7,295
guineas. Lord Rosebery is busy these days ex-
horting Londoners to vote in the borough elec-
tion. He wants the factories to be removed from

"4

OCTOBER, 1900

London and the workers taken with them.

My market report shows that provender is
fairly cheap. Pheasants are 6s. a brace, hares 45.,
larks 2s. a dozen, good soles lod. a lb., turbot and
brill 6d.

October 28, /poo.

The Aurania did not arrive at Southampton
with the popular C.I.V.'s until late in the after-
noon and so the troops remain on board over
Sunday, much to the disappointment of their
friends. Colonel Mackinnon, their commander
[the late Gen. Sir Henry Mackinnon], says they
could have gone into Plymouth if they had known
that London was waiting for them with a great
reception, and so could have reached here in time,
but, of course, they were out of touch with land.
The procession will therefore take place to-
morrow. There has been no such excitement
since Mafeking Day last spring.

I had a call in the morning from Mr. W.
Broderick Cloete, the landed proprietor and
racing man, who is mixed up with South African
affairs. He is keen to start a daily paper with
the avowed object of promoting the expansion of
the Empire, and he wanted my advice and co-
operation. " How much money are you prepared
to lose?" I asked. " Lose ?" he cried. "Nothing.
It would be a great success at once.' 1 I explained
that it would not be safe to begin without a capital
of at least 300,000. "Well," he replied,

"5

RJJJ.'s DIARY

" Harmsworth says he only put down 10,000
for the Daily Mail four years ago, and I under-
stand Arthur Pearson is already making money
on the Daily Express, so why couldn't I do the
same?" I smiled at this, for Pearson is reported
to have lost 2,000 a week since he started the
Daily Express last April. Cloete was most per-
sistent and rather vexed at my refusal to change
my views, particularly after I showed him that
all the Unionist papers are strongly imperialistic
and there is no room for another morning
paper.

John Strange Winter (Mrs. Stannard), the
talented lady who wrote " Booties' Baby," enter-
tained me for a quarter of an hour on the sub-
ject of women's coiffures most interesting. She
says the toupee, or transformation has come to
stay. No more disarranged curls, no more frowsy
fringes at the damp seaside, and no more lace
caps for ladies past fifty. A duplicate transfor-
mation makes it possible to dress the hair in two
minutes. I learned with astonishment that some
women pay as much as thirty pounds for an
artistic addition, but that you can get a nice one
for from three to five guineas. Also women who
suffer from neuralgia and they nearly all do,
owing, I think, to tight lacing derive great
benefit from the transformation; at least Mrs.
Stannard says so.

A plumber's assistant came yesterday morning
to repair a leaking drain pipe. I noticed that he

xx6

OCTOBER, 1900

smoked many cigarettes. I mentioned this later
to Mayo Gunn, who was manager of the St.
James's Gazette, but has now joined his relatives,
the Wills, of Bristol, in the tobacco business. He
says working men are taking more and more to
cigarettes, which are so much cheaper since the
introduction of machinery. A man named Bern-
hard Baron [late head of Carreras] brought over
a machine a few years ago and he turns out
thousands per hour. He is likely to make a
fortune.

October 29, igoo.

The scenes in the streets to-day when the
C.I.V.'s marched through the town were astound-
ing. Mile upon mile of cheering crowds. Hooli-
ganism everywhere. Police arrangements hope-
less. Two killed and thirteen injured in the
crush. Hundreds of lost children. The Prince of
Wales [Edward VII.] waved his hat at the
soldiers from Marlborough House. Lord
Wolseley read them a welcoming message from
the Queen at the H.A.C. barracks, but before they
got there the crowd repeatedly broke up the mili-
tary formation. The Lord Mayor made them all
Freemen of the City. There never was a more
mismanaged public procession. London has
gone mad again, and to-night there have been the
usual scenes in the streets with four-wheelers
packed in and out with rollicking youth.

"7

R J)J.'s DIARY

Accidents due to horses shying at motor cars
are far too frequent. Many motorists refrain
from slowing down or stopping their engines
when they approach horses on the road. If this
precaution were more generally observed there
would be fewer accidents. I have just been told
of a fatality of this sort on the Brighton Road,
in which a woman was killed in a runaway. Sir
Walter Gilbey, who drives about the Essex roads
in the Stansted district in a phaeton, with out-
riders, complains bitterly that his horses run
great risks whenever a motor comes along. He
never drives on the main Cambridge road now for
fear of meeting a motor car.

I have just finished reading The World's Great
Snare, by Mr. E. Phillips Oppenheim, a fine study
of stirring times in the Far West. This young
author is fast coming forward as a writer of life
in the mining camps.

A narrow escape to-day while crossing Traf al
gar Square from being run down by a bicyclist
" scorcher." The police appear to be incapable
of putting an end to this dangerous habit and
when the culprits are caught they appear to get
off too lightly. Sir Albert de Rutzen, at Bow
Street, is one of the few magistrates with a proper
sense of punishment fitting the crime. He lets
them have it strong.

The Rev* J. M. Bacon, the most daring oi

118

OCTOBER, 1900

ised for aerial transport, but he thinks little of
Count Zeppelin's experiments in the air. In hb
view internal combustion engines are not power-
ful enough to do the work.

October 30, 1900.

Andrew Carnegie is in town from his Scottish
castle for a few days. I went shopping with him
to day. He wanted some handkerchiefs and a
couple of neckties. When we came out he said
that London's shopping methods are all wrong.
"Just look at the jumble in the windows," he
said. " So much stuff that you cannot take it all
in. And when you go into a shop they treat you
most indifferently. You are scowled at if you
ask for goods out of the ordinary, and you are
made to feel uncomfortable if you do not buy.
These shop people drive away more people than
they attract. That's all wrong. Pd like to own a
big draper's shop in Regent Street. I'd show
'em !" He recurred to this grievance throughout
the hour that I was with him. " What London
wants," he said, " is a good shaking up." Then
he went away to think about giving away some
more millions.

Three notable deaths to record. "Bill"
Yardley, the cricketer and critic, who appears in
late years to have fallen on evil days ; Professor
Max Muller, the Oriental scholar of Oxford and
friend of Lord Salisbury; and Prince Christian

119

RJ)J.'s DIARY

Victor of Schleswig-Holstein, grandson of the
Queen, who died of enteric in a military hospital
at Pretoria, aged thirty-three. Prince Christian
was popular in the Army. The tradespeople will
make their usual complaint against the inevitable
mourning order which puts society in black for
another term. Queen Victoria insists on Court
mourning for all her relatives, and since she is
related to most of the reigning houses this comes
pretty hard on our fashion providers.

John Morley, who was once editor of the Pall
Mall, proposes to do a Life of Gladstone which,
he says, will be better than his Cromwell. He
thinks a journalist's life is to be preferred to any
other. He came into the Savoy to-day accom-
panied by his secretary, and gave me what he said
was Dion Boucicault's advice to journalists from
his experience as a popular playwright. Bouci-
cault's views are that there are three guiding
principles in stagecraft and journalism which, if
followed, cannot fail to be successful. They are :
(i) Money; (2) Love; (3) Stomach. Money
interests everybody. Love comes to everybody,
and includes envy, hatred, jealousy, loyalty,
honour, and all the other human and spiritual
attributes. Stomach takes in everything that is
physical.

I find that if I wish to lay my hands on any
one who is prominent in public or social life I
have to send to the Princes' Skating Rink in
Rnightsbridge. " Meet me at Princes' " is be-

120

OCTOBER, tgoo

coming as familiar as " Meet me at Jimmy's *
used to be. The skating vogue, now that it is
too cool to lounge in the Park, is quite the thing.

October 31, ipoo.

Lunch to-day in Ridgemount Gardens with
Joseph Hatton, perhaps the most prolific writer of
the past twenty years. Only last week he finished
a book called In Male Attire. W. S. Gilbert was
there, and he talked a lot about his experiences
as a clerk in the Privy Council office forty years
ago and his unfulfilled ambitions at the Ban He
thinks Edward Carson [now Lord Carson], who
has made a great position at the English Bar
since his daring prosecution of Oscar Wilde, is
perhaps the most successful man in the Law
Courts to-day, run close by Rufus Isaacs [now
Lord Reading], who began life before the mast.
Gilbert has made a great deal of money out of
his partnership with Sir Arthur Sullivan, and, like
most successful men, he ate sparingly and spoke
a good deal about his digestion, which I imagine
worries him a lot. Most humorists seem to be
thus afflicted.

I understand that owing to the terrible confu-
sion at the London docks, which are administered
by forty different authorities, the Royal Commis-
sion, which has been sitting on this muddle, has
decided to recommend a single body to take con-

121

s DIARY

troL London has lost a great deal of business
owing to this dock confusion.

Horace Fletcher, the man who is mostly
responsible for the infliction of Japanese fans and
other cheap Oriental gewgaws on Europe and
America, has developed a new one. Like Luigi
Cornaro, the Italian nonagenarian, he has found
youth by chewing every morsel of food until it
is no longer chewable, and this has reduced
Fletcher from fifteen stone to ten stone in weight,
and given him the strength and endurance of a
young giant. A year ago he was just a fat, flabby,
helpless invalid, and we had to assist him into a
four-wheeler. Now he rides a bicycle before
breakfast for twenty miles and never tires. He
came in to see me this evening. Wants me to
go to the Paris Exhibition with him, thence to
Avignon, Mimes, and Aries, and bicycle from
there via Marseilles along the Riviera to Genoa
and Venice, where he contemplates buying a
palace on the Grand Canal. I shall probably go.

To-day marks the end of all the old London
vestries, and the new borough councils, with their
mayors and maces and councillors come into
being. Town hall, not vestry hall, in future, and
thirty-odd mayors in procession to represent
Greater London. Westminster is now one of the
world's greatest cities, but none of them will com-
pare with the splendours of the old City of
London, which goes on feasting and wining in its
ancient company halls as it has for centuries.

122

NOVEMBER, 1900

November 2, igoo.

The news is out, and official, that Lord Lans-
downe is to succeed Lord Salisbury at the Foreign
Office. This will provoke a protest from many
quarters. Opinion is divided on his capacity,
particularly since he has not been a great success
at the War Office, where in present circumstances
no one could succeed. Sir William Harcourt,
who is nothing if not caustic, says that the reason
Lord Lansdowne is to go to the Foreign Office,
is because he speaks good French and he leaves
the War Office because he does not speak the
Dutch Taal. Lord Selborne goes to the Admir-
alty and Mr. C. T. Ritchie to the Home Office.
Black Michael (Sir M. Hicks Beach) will remain
at the Treasury, and George Wyndham goes to
Ireland. This young Guardsman poet has come
on very fast of late.

The old story of lawyers being careless in the
making of their wills is illustrated in the last
testament of Lord Russell, of Killowen, the late
Lord Chief Justice, who left nearly 150,000, but
omitted to initial the codicil ; and he was usually
an extremely careful man in such matters. It is
a coincidence, to-day, that with the publication
of Lord Russell's will comes the sale of Parnell's
estate in Ireland, thus once more bringing before
the public two great figures in the famous Times
forgery case.

123

RJ)JS.'s DIARY

Old Bullivant, the silk hat ironer at Carter's*
in Fleet Street, took a day off yesterday, because
it was his birthday. Otherwise, he says, he has
not had a holiday for years. He went to Lincoln
and Bennett's, in Piccadilly, and spent most of
the time watching the hat ironer there, and he
tells me he has gained a few new ideas. He says,
too, that silk hats are now more worn than ever,
and that it is a delight to polish the fashionable
hats that cost I, as against the cheap stuff that
the clerks buy in the City at los. The nap doesn't
last.

Some people carry their prejudices rather far.
I sent a reporter to-day to see a City banker on
an important matter. He saw him, but also sent
me a note he is a personal friend suggesting
that in future I might like to take into considera-
tion the fact that reporters should conform to
custom by coming into the City attired in a
manner more in keeping with the dignity of their
calling; meaning that they should not wear
bowler hats and brown boots. I have taken the
hint and issued an order in accordance with this
rebuke.

November j, 1900.

Lady Charles Beresford, who knows everything
and everybody, told me to-day that the recent
naval battle in the Mediterrranean manoeuvres,
between the rival squadrons of Lord Charles and

124

NOVEMBER, 1900

Sir J. Fisher [afterwards Lord Fisher of Kilver-
stone] has left a legacy of considerable bad blood,
with no end of recrimination and an official in-
tervention by the Admiralty, which declines to
permit the two admirals to carry their quarrel
to the state of a public inquiry. Lady Charles
also told me a great secret which everybody
knows namely, that the Marchioness of Bute,
with her children, has gone to the Holy Land to
bury her late husband's heart on the Mount of
Olives. This was Lord Bute's wish ; so her gold-
smiths have made a beautiful golden casket, in
which the heart is deposited, and Lady Bute has
carried it all the way to Jerusalem, never losing
sight of the precious casket.

I have to-day received a telegram which I shall
keep as a curiosity. It is a wireless message sent
to me from the Belgian cross-Channel steamer
Princess Clementine, between Dover and Ostend.
The steamer had a wireless instrument fitted on
deck, and left this morning to carry out the ex-
periment which marks a new era in communica-
tion at sea. The British postal authorities are,
of course, taking the usual attitude of a mixture
of aloofness and opposition. The Marconi people
wanted permission to put up a tower at Dover,
but this was withheld, and so the message which
came to-day had to come through Belgium. It
was flashed from the steamer to Lapanne. Thence
it was sent by land telegraph to Brussels and then
by land and cable to London. The Post Office

125

RX>3.'s DIARY

attitude reminds me of their decision ten years
ago when Mr. William Russell inaugurated the
messenger call-boy service. That was considered
to be an infringement of the Postmaster-Generars
monopoly, and Russell had to pay tribute of a
penny for every messenger call. This Marconi
experiment to-day was important. It is not diffi-
cult to envisage the possibilities of the new system
of communication. Mr. Marconi predicts a wide
range of ocean telegraphy, even beyond the
present jo-mile limit, and we are thus encouraged
to believe that many disasters at sea will be pre-
vented.

Edna May, the toast of young London for
several years, telephoned this afternoon that
Charles Frohman has asked her to return to New
York at once to appear in a new comedy. She
has made a wonderful success. When she
came here in The Belle of New York she
had little experience beyond the second row
of the chorus, from which George Lederer
selected her. I know of no quicker rise in a
short time, except that of May Yohe, in her
Honey, my Honey.

The municipal elections have proved a great
success for the Conservatives, who call themselves
Moderates. Their figures are 825, as against 455
Progressives and 82 Independents. The fight was
against Radicalism and extravagance. Reckless
expenditure always occurs when the Radicals
have control of other people's money.

126

NOVEMBER, igoo

November 4, ipoo.

Mr. Lee, the Court veiler, of Wigmore Street,
showed me some of his pet creations in veils for
women. He was just packing up a new set for
the Empress of Russia, a special design of plain,
clear, net, with a chenille spotted edge and worked
by hand. English princesses prefer a clear net
with small evenly set spots. This spotting is be-
coming popular. The spots are hand-sewn, and
Mr. Lee showed me a lot of girls sewing them on.
He is especially proud of his popular "Nell
Gwynne " veil, which has only two black velvet
" beauty spots ."

" Monty " Guest, the Prince of Wales's con-
fidant, came down for a Sunday chat. He says
H.R.H. is anxious to let us know that he has
private information that neither the Kaiser nor
the French President intends to give Kruger a
reception, and that the Kaiser does not even
intend to see him. The situation with the Kaiser
is rather delicate. If we admonish him too much
he may throw discretion to the winds and re-
ceive Kruger merely from pique. Guest did not
say so in so many words, but I imagine H.R.H.
has been exchanging some rather intimate home
truths with his fiery nephew. I think Mr. Guest's
visit had a good deal of diplomacy in it, and that
he is paving the way to an easier reception for the
Kaiser on his threatened visit to his august grand-
lay

RJ)J.'s DIARY

mother at Windsor. Germans have been making
a lot of anti-British capital out of the divorce suit
which the Princess Aribert of Anhalt (Queen
Victoria's granddaughter) has instituted. The
German Court says she is ultra-English in her
ideas of freedom, but they admit that Prince
Aribert is inconsiderate and extravagant.

A letter last night from a farmer, who lives near
my week-end cottage in Essex, complaining that
I am spoiling the labour market by overpaying
my man-of-all-work, who has been heretofore
rated as a farm labourer. I pay him eighteen
shillings a week, which is more than the regular
wage of farm labourers in the district, but then
he looks after the garden and airs the cottage.
I am trying to buy the place, but since it is copy-
hold and not freehold, there are great difficulties.
The superior landlord, the agent, the solicitor, all
have to be compensated, so that the fines for en-
franchisement come to a tidy-proportion of the
purchase price. Land, however, is worth only
about 7 per acre, and the total will not be great.
The present rental for ten acres, with house, is
about '28 per year. The copyholder, whose
tenant I am, pays to the overlord, who happens
to be Lady Warwick, an annual fine of a sheep ;
at least, he is supposed to render this tribute.

November 5, 1900.

There is to be a determined onslaught on the
128

NOVEMBER, 1900

principle of income tax in the next session by a
number of back benchers, among them that effec-
tive stump orator, Mr. George Doughty, of
Grimsby. He told me to-day that the tax [8d. in
the ] weights too heavily on people with moder-
ate incomes, and that it constitutes a hindrance
to trade. He saw the Chancellor about it one day
last week, and " Black Michael " retorted char-
acteristically : "You ought to be damned glad it
isn't tenpence in the pound !" The Revenue
people have recently made it rather unpleasant
for people who are a year behind in their pay-
ments.

The motor-car built for the Prince of Wales
was being driven all the way to Sandringham
on Saturday, and at Finchley one of its tyres
collapsed. The driver, wearing the royal uni-
form, had the car hauled to a local cycle
shop, where it was repaired, and the journey
continued.

That irrepressible letter writer, Mr. Algernon
Ashton, who never fails to put forward a new
topic for public discussion, or discover a decayed
tombstone, sends me a line asking for publicity
on the subject of Bulwer Lytton's birthplace, at
31, Baker Street. He wants the Society of Arts
to put up a tablet in commemoration.

Mr. Hanbury looks like going to the Treasury
as Financial Secretary. He is very rich, but an
ambitious politician. He told me the other day of
a coal mine he is a coalowner in Wales, which

129

JLDJ9.V DIARY

pays 130 per cent., and another in Northumber-
land paying 105 per cent., which shows that coal
mining is a fine thing. Hanbury also told me
the secret of Lord Beauchamp's resignation of the
governorship of New South Wales. When Lord
Hopetoun was made Governor-General of the
new Commonwealth, Sir William Lyne, the
Premier of N.S.W., told Lord Beauchamp that
the people expected him to give up Government
House in the new Governor-General's favour.
There is as yet no provision for a Commonwealth
palace, but Lord Beauchamp declined. He
offered, however, to entertain the Earl of Hope-
toun and staff at Government House at his own
expense. " Bill " Lyne would not have this, so
Lord Beauchamp made up his mind to resign,
and he is coming home.

I held the stake to-day, 5 a-side, in a wager
between Monsieur Van Branteghem, that strange
little Belgian diplomat-financier, who wears a
golden bracelet, a gold-rimmed monocle, and an
enormous gold watch chain, and Marcus Mayer,
who was Patti's manager for many years. The
bet was that Van Branteghem could walk all the
way on the kerb side of Regent Street from
Verrey's to Piccadilly and that he would not have
more than three mud splashes from passing
horses 1 hoofs on his collar. When we reached
Swan and Edgar's corner the little Belgian had
five blobs on his high collar and three for luck
on his face.

130

NOVEMBER, ipoo

To-day was Guy Fawkes* Day. I have never
seen so many guys in the streets.

November 6, igoo.

I hear authoritatively that Lord Stanley, M.P.
[now Lord Derby], is to have office as Financial
Secretary to the War Office, and that his appoint-
ment is to be made in a day or two. He has been
a most zealous and rather rigid Press censor in
South Africa, and some of the correspondents
have complained bitterly of his official attitude,
though personally he is always amiable. Being
the son of the Earl of Derby, he is naturally in
the running for preferment. I hear, too, that
Lord Salisbury has offered the Local Government
Board to Mr. Walter Long, now President of the
Board of Agriculture, of whom it is said that when
the Prime Minister met him recently and shook
hands, Lord Salisbury turned afterwards to Mr.
Arthur Balfour and asked, " Who is that rather
pleasant man?" Mr. Balfour is even more
absent-minded than his distinguished uncle, and
he is reported to have said, " I know his face very
well, but I cannot remember his name. But I
think he is one of your Ministers. " Rather rough
on the man who stamped out rabies from these
islands.

The Home Office appears to be alarmed about
our rapid consumption of coal. The report they
send down to-day states that we are producing

131

RJ).B.'s DIARY

twice as much as we did thirty years ago and five
times more than fifty years ago. The total output
for last year was more than 220 millions of tons.
There will be a serious coal famine soon within
the lives of the present generation unless we exer-
cise economy.

Colonel "Bill" Carington [Equerry to the
Queen], at the Cafe Royal to-day, stated that
when the Duke and Duchess of York [King
George and Queen Mary] go on their Australian
tour early in the year they will sail in a mail
steamer, and not on board a man-of-war. The
Australian liners are growing in size ; one or two
of ten or twelve thousand tons. Mail steamers
generally are becoming larger. The Germans are
talking of a ship of 30,000 tons, which beats the
Oceanic and the Celtic. They register about
20,000 tons or so, which is double the size of ten
years ago.

Mrs. Rendle and Miss Tattershall write from
Baker Street that they have opened a new tea
room, in which there are to be found lady pro-
prietors, lady waitresses in pretty frocks, and
ladies to bake the cakes, pastries, and scones, and
where the walls are decorated with attractive
pictures and hangings, and so on. The new
woman progresses.

November 7, igoo.

James McNeil Whistler was over from Paris
132

NOVEMBER, 1900

to-day and holding forth as usual. His latest
grievance is that Yerkes proposes to put up a
gigantic power house in Chelsea for the electrifica-
tion of the Underground, and as it is to have
enormous chimneys towering far into the sky, it
will completely ruin the bend of the Thames made
famous by Turner. " They ought to be drawn
and quartered/' says the author of The Gentle
Art of Making Enemies. Whistler had on a soft
hat, and for once he had discarded his flowing
tie. " I used to wear the tie," he said, " when
there were artists in the world. There are none
now.".

Considerable agitation among City councillors
and tradesmen, led by Lord Mayor-elect Green,
against the congestion of street traffic, particu-
larly in the mornings, when the main thorough-
fares are packed with heavy goods vans that
block up the roadways and make progress diffi-
cult. Mr. Deputy Weingott, who is active in the
protest, said to-day that if this congestion of
traffic continues London will be impossible in five
years. It is obvious that this will be the case un-
less the authorities provide one or two new streets
leading to and from the City.

An amusing half-hour with Jim O'Kelly, M.P.,
the most romantic figure in Parliament. He
stuck to Parnell to the last, and told me many
humorous stories of Parnell's iron hand and the
humility of the otherwise turbulent Home Rule
members whenever they were in his presence.

RJ)J.'s DIARY

O'Kelly's experiences in the Carlist revolution
and in the Franco-Prussian War are described by
him in a masterly way; and his story of how he
ensured the safety of the Empress of Mexico on
her flight from the rebels who executed her
husband, Maximilian, would read like a romance
by Dumas.

The Law Society is agitated about the increase
of defalcations among solicitors who make free
with their clients' money. The arrest of Ben-
jamin Lake, ex-chairman of the Society's Dis-
cipline Committee, who is involved in enormous
losses, has brought the matter to a climax, and
there will probably be new legislation. The
worst feature of these many defalcations is that
so many trust funds of infants are involved, and
some method must be devised, preferably under
Government control, to protect them. The temp-
tations to otherwise responsible men are very
great. Unlucky speculation appears to be the
principal cause of ruin.

November p, 1900.

The new Lord Mayor, with his show, had the
day to himself. It was partly military and partly
Drury Lane. I liked the keepers of the Epping
Forest in their uniforms, and the crowd was en-
thusiastic over the 4in. gun of the cruiser Power-
ful (imitation it was), which Captain Percy
Scott's sailors carried to Ladysmith on the im-

NOVEMBER, 2900

provised gun carriage. At the Law Courts Lord
Alverstone (Sir Richard Webster) the new Lord
Chief Justice, did the honours, with Justices
Mathew, Grantham, Wills, and Kennedy. I went
to the Guildhall Banquet to-night. Lord Salis-
bury was a trifle sarcastic about the " Concert of
Europe," which, he said, " preserves peace and at
the same time defers for a considerable period
the solution of any problem in hand." Mr.
Goschen spoke for the last time as First Lord of
the Admiralty, and I thought he looked, pathetic-
ally tired and old. He was characteristically
gracious in his reference to his young successor,
Lord Selborne, who blushed like a maiden of
seventeen.

Mr. Soulsby, the Lord Mayor's private secre-
tary, who passes on from one chief magistrate to
the other, told me to-night that the pay of the
City Police is to be increased. They are in future
to have 275. a week.

I hear from Mr. Alfred Beit, the diamond
millionaire, that the story of his engagement to
Mrs. Adolph Ladenburg, of New York, is un-
founded. The story has been going the rounds.
Mrs. Ladenburg's husband, the head of the great
firm of Ladenburg, Thalmann, and Co., was lost
overboard on a voyage from Nassau to New York
some years ago. His great fortune was left to his
widow, death being assumed, but I have heard
that she declares she will never remarry until she
is absolutely certain that he is no longer alive.

/f DIARY

Sir George Lewis, the solicitor [grandfather of
the present Sir George], said to-day that with
the advent of Mr. Ritchie at the Home Office
the friends of Mrs. Maybrick, who poisoned her
husband, hope to secure her release from her life
sentence. She has now served about ten years.
Sir Matthew White Ridley was emphatic in his
refusal to pardon her, although Mrs, Maybrick's
mother, the Baroness de Roques, bombarded him
incessantly with petitions and applications. For
a time she came every morning to the Home
Office.

Old Charles Morton, the manager of the Palace
Theatre, is authority for the statement that the
best marriage agencies in London are the long
bars of the St. James and the Criterion, where
the Junoesque barmaids are constantly resigning
to enter the matrimonial stakes. The young men
home from the Colonies are the principal suitors.

November 10, ipoo.

I bought a couple of aquatints of London of
the period of William IV., by Boys, in an old
shop behind the Royal Academy, yesterday after-
noon. These very fine prints are becoming rare.
As I stood in the doorway talking with the pro-
prietor, Sam Lewis, the famous moneylender,
came along. His office is close by. He stopped
and I asked him about the new Moneylenders
Act. Was it satisfactory and workable? " Cer-

136

NOVEMBER, 1900

tainly," he said. " There will be less fraud, now
that moneylenders have to register and disclose
their real names. It is no easy business, either.
Moneylenders are more sinned against than sin-
ning, but I am dead against Shylocks. No one
ever accused me of being a Shylock, and I have
about a million out on loan throughout the year.
I never foreclose on a really honest man if I can
help it *

Everybody is talking about the arrest of a man
named Bennett on the charge of murdering his
wife, known as " Mrs. Hood," who was found
strangled with a bootlace on Yarmouth beach
some months ago. The affair looked like going
down in criminal history as the Yarmouth
mystery. It is remarkable to note that people of
all grades of society are more interested in crime
mystery particularly the murder of a woman
than in any other topic.

I am writing this note in the train from Calais
to Paris, whither I am bound on the proposed
bicycle tour with Horace Fletcher, whose objec-
tive is Venice via the Riviera. I am not sure
whether I shall go all the way, but certainly to
Marseilles, where I may run across Oom Paul
Kruger and our old friend Dr. Leyds. The
steamer from Dover was crowded with passengers,
and I met many people I know Harry Marks, of
the Financial News, Davison Dalziel, of DalziePs

* Sam Lewis left the bulk of his enormous fortune to
charity.

137

s DIARY

News Agency, who is now interested in great
enterprises, including motor-cars ; Horace Sedger,
the theatrical manager, and the Chevalier Scovel,
the 75 a week tenor who married Peggy Roose-
velt; Geraldine Ullmar, the comic opera star;
Lady de Grey going to Paris to see Bernhardt in
L'Aiglon; Sir A. Hardinge [now Lord Hard-
inge of Penshurst], who has just been appointed
Minister to Persia ; the Marquis de Leuville, that
strange pomatumed, raven-locked poet of St.
Martin's Lane; Francisco Tamagno, the Turin
tenor who gets 100 a night and lives on garlic
and sausages ; Prince Victor Napoleon, with his
enormous moustache; Val Prinsep, R.A., Sir
Patteson Nickalls, father of the rowing family,
and Maurice Grau, the operatic manager. A
notable list. The Cyclists' Touring Club have
given us some invaluable information and advice
about hotels abroad. They have an admirable
system which enables them to tell you at a glance
which is a good place to stay in and which to
avoid.

The writer of the Diary went abroad on
November 10, 1900, and as his holiday activities
on the Continent have no real interest, the Diary,
therefore, does not resume until December,

+ * * + *

December /, 1001.

DECEMBER, 1901

from his command in the Army on account of his
much discussed speech on South Africa grows
apace. To-day, being Sunday, I went first to Hyde
Park and heard an orator tell a crowd of many
thousands that Sir Redvers Buller is a national
hero who has been sacrificed by the mandarins of
the War Office. Loud cheers. In Clapham
Common there was another great demonstration
which demanded Buller's reinstatement. All
over the country they are making speeches. Sir
Edgar Vincent, M.P. [Viscount D'Abernon], and
Mr. Duke, K.C., M.P. [Lord Merrivale], are
telling the west country people that they must
stand by their great man. Buller has retired to
his home at Crediton. The soldiers all swear by
him as the man who fed his army as no man ever
fed troops before. As for his military qualifica-
tions the soldiers all say that he isn't a Napo-
leon.

There is a great hullabaloo about the
Censor's latest refusal to license Mr. G. B.
Shaw's play, Mrs. Warren's Profession, which
he wrote some years ago and cannot obtain
permission to produce publicly. "Handsome
Jack" Barnes, who has read it, tells me
that it is " very French," and that if it sees
the light the playgoers of a future generation
will be justified in saying that the stage of
to-day was exceedingly daring. John Hare
says it is merely "life," and he cannot see
why the Stage Society may produce it this month,

139

R>3.'* DIARY

while the Censor keeps the general public away.*
Mr. George Gray Ward, the head of the Com-
mercial Cable Company, arrived yesterday from
New York in the Teutonic. He came to lunch,
and was not in the least alarmed about the sugges-
tion that Marconi's invention may in time super-
sede ocean cables. " We are not at all apprehen-
sive," he said. " It may become useful enough
for short-distance work, but we are going on lay-
ing cables." Ward began life in London as a tele-
graph clerk. Now he is head of the great cable
company, and, I believe, a rich man ; but he says
there are more chances of gaining riches in
London ; which is something novel nowadays, for
everyone is bleating about England being " on
her last legs, unable to last another ten years,"
and so on.

Mrs. Arthur Griffiths, who is Kate Reilly, the
dressmaker of fashion, is my authority for stat-
ing that women's fashions will undergo a great
change. The long bell-shaped frocks will be less
voluminous, and laced boots are to go. Also
evening gowns are to be heavily embellished
with ostrich plumes. Evening gowns are be-
coming more expensive, in the neighbourhood
of 15.

* Mrs . Warren*s Profession was produced at the Regent
Theatre in 1926, after thirty years of prohibition. Com-
pared with some of our modern English productions it is
milk and water; the sort of thing our young people would
describe as " rather dull"

140

DECEMBER, 1901

December 2, /poo.

I had a letter this morning from M. Baudin,
Minister of Public Works in Paris. He pro-
pounds a wonderful scheme. He wants to pro-
mote submarine cross-Channel boats to do away
with sea-sickness. His idea is to have electric
cables between Calais and Dover, on which
under-sea vessels carrying two hundred pas-
sengers are to be suspended like tramcars on the
roads. In case of accident the boats can rise to
the surface and propel themselves with their own
electric power. " Five years from now," says M.
Baudin, " there will be no cross-Channel
steamers."

Mayo Gunn, who used to be manager of the
St. James's Gazette, under Mr.Steinkopf,but who
is now connected with the Wills tobacco firm (the
Wills are his uncles), sends me the latest broad-
side against the American tobacco invasion. It is
issued by the new Imperial Tobacco Company,
and says : " Americans whose markets are closed
by prohibitive tariffs against British goods have
declared their intention of monopolising the
tobacco trade in this country. It is for the British
public to decide whether British Labour, Capital,
and Trade are to be subordinate to the American
system of Trust, Monopoly, and all that is im-
plied therein."

Mayo Gunn adds that the Americans will
14*

RJDJS.'s DIARY

never be permitted to establish their trusts in
England.

I spent last night at Finchley as the guest of
Kennedy Jones in his fine new house, which was
Sam Waring's special exhibit at the Paris Exhibi-
tion last year. It is filled with all sorts of wonder-
ful improvements and inventions, including a
marvellous gramophone, which is quite free from
irksome scraping sounds. Finchley is only a few
miles out, but it might be far in the country, with
its expanse of fields and meadows. We came back
this morning in K J.'s big new autocar of fifteen
horse-power. It goes uphill almost as easily as
on the flat. It is a great change in K J.'s circum-
stances.

I remember him eight or nine years ago, when
he was a reporter on T. P. O'Connor's evening
paper^ the Sun. Then he was prosperous on seven
or eight pounds a week. He joined Alfred
Harmsworth, and now he has an income of at
least 25,000 a year.

I met young Santos Dumont, the clever Brazi-
lian inventor of the flying machine, with Mrs.
Arthur Stannard (" Booties' Baby ") to-day. He
says there must be a lot of development and much
disappointment before people will be able to use
flying machines if ever, but he means to persist.
He speaks English fluently, and appears to be a
modest young man, quite unaffected by all the
adulation that has been heaped on him, particu-
larly by the women of France and England. He

142

DECEMBER, 1901

talks quite modestly of his wonderful feat in fly-
ing round the Eiffel Tower in Paris, as if it were
an everyday occurrence like driving in a hansom
cab.

December 5,

Sir Francis Jeune [President of the Admiralty
and Divorce Division, afterwards Lord St. Hilier]
was ambling along in Carey Street, behind the
Law Courts, as I came down there. He was in a
grim humour. " I don't know," he said " that I
wouldn't prefer to come up in this street (where
the bankrupts go for examination) than to be put
through a grilling in the Divorce Court at the
hands of Bargrave Deane. I have just finished a
dreadful day, and the air in those rooms is over-
powering. I go through a Black Hole of Calcutta
experience every day. It is enough to sour a
saint/' A most kindly old man, certainly one of
the saintliest I know. He keeps fit by riding his
bicycle. The favourite jest in the suburbs is, I
hear: " I think I shall have to tell Sir Francis
about you."

Commodity prices have not changed much. In
this bitter weather I have had to order in some
household coal at 19$. 6d. a ton. Provision
markets are what they call " steady "Scotch
salmon is 2s., soles is. to is. 2d., plaice 5$. to 6s.
per stone, whitebait is. per quart, Yorkshire fowls
2s. 6d., Surrey 2s. 6d. to 35., Irish is. 6d. to is. 9d.

R.D.B.'s DIARY

I went last night to see Marie Tempest in
Becky Sharpe at the Prince of Wales'. She has
become the complete actress a great change since
I first saw her a dozen or more years ago in The
Red Hussar, as a musical comedy star. She
does not look a day older than she did then, and
is just as vivacious.

Seymour Bell, who represents the London
Chamber of Commerce in America, tells me that
Americans are beginning to drink Scotch whisky,
and that it will soon be a popular beverage. They
call it " High Ball," and drink it with ice and
soda. He also says that unless we begin to adopt
labour-saving devices in England the Americans
will soon beat us in manufacturing.

All the experts are beginning to agree that the
omnibus, if not exactly doomed to extinction, has
a dubious future. Mr. Clifton Robinson, who is
strong on private tramways, and Mr. John Benn
[Sir John] of the County Council, are firm in this
belief. Mr. Yerkes thinks that when the Metro-
politan and District are fully electrified, the omni-
buses will have a bad time. This belief is re-
flected, too, in the market position of the omnibus
company. A year ago the London General
Company's shares were 216. To-day they are
100. The 6 shares of the Road Car Company
stood a year ago at ioj4. Now they are 4j^. The
Stock Exchange, at any rate, is taking no
chances.

I wonder why people do not use autocars more
144

DECEMBER,

for commercial purposes? Newspapers, for in-
stance, ought to utilise them more. When I was
in Paris last week I went to the office of Le
Journal, and there they have installed twenty-
five autocars for the delivery of their papers. That
is an enormous number, but they seem to have
made a success of it.

December 4, IQOI.

Hector MacDonald has been giving me a
good deal of trouble. [Major-General Sir Hector
MacDonald, a famous and popular soldier who
started life as a draper's assistant, committed
suicide in Paris some years later.] It appears
that the MacDonalds of the Empire subscribed
a large sum to provide their hero with a sword
of honour to commemorate his famous tactical
movement at the battle of Omdurman. The
sword was made by an Edinburgh goldsmith
named MacDonald. The secretary of the com-
mittee which ordered the sword, also a Mac-
Donald, told me that when the sword was de-
livered to Sir Hector at Capetown during the
present campaign [Boer War] it was found that
it was merely a cheap so-called tailor's sword, and
not the bejewelled work of art that had cost so
much money. We printed this as illustrating a
piece of Scotch economy relying on the appar-
ently unquestionable authority of the official
MacDonald. But the Edinburgh jeweller, a man

.V DIARY

of integrity and good character, sued for
damages. We could not prove our case. Sir
Hector is off chasing De Wet with his Highland
Brigade, and is unapproachable and so we
agree to pay 800 in full liquidation without
going to trial.

I had a prolonged chat with an omnibus driver
all the way to the City from Sloane Square. The
old man must be over seventy, but looks quite
young. They now have a 'Busmen's Union, and
they are beginning to agitate for a day off now
and then without being fined for it. They work
365 days a year, and think that too much. Be-
sides, the pay is bad never above 2 a week,
including extras. Out of this rents have to be paid
at an average of 75. 6d. a week, and food, so that
there is not much over for beer.

Mr. Alpheus Cleophas Morton, M.P., came
into the office to enlist my interest against the
purchase of the National Telephone Company by
the Government for something like < 8,000,000.
He talked fiercely for half an hour, and at the end
of that time I could not understand if he was for
or against the scheme. Anyhow, I see little chance
for the company, for Lord Londonderry, the
P.M.G., declines to permit them to lay any more
wires underground, and since they are not per-
mitted to string them on poles, their usefulness
for future development is clearly at an end. The
Government will surely make a hash of the tele-
phones if they are taken over.

146

DECEMBER, 1901

A dreadful scene this afternoon in Bedford
Street, near the Strand. Two drunken viragos
fighting; one of them handicapped by having an
infant in her arms. A couple of dozen loafers
cheering them, and a policeman who stood by
only interfered when one of the women showed
" claret " on the nose. No use remonstrating.
The police know how to handle these people.
When it was over they all adjourned to the beer-
house at the corner.

December 6, ipoi.

Maude Garland, the statesque Juno who used
to stir the hearts of our young Guardsmen at the
Gaiety, had a bad fall in the Park this morning,
and was taken into St. George's Hospital severely
bruised. She was ambling along the Row where
there was an unexpected fusillade of shots, which
sent her hired hack skeltering and displaying un-
wonted alacrity like a buckjumper, and she came
down in a heap. It seems that " George Ranger "
(the Duke of Cambridge), who is the autocrat of
the Park, has decreed that there are too many
wild ducks, which are corrupting the manners of
the tame ones, and so every morning he organises
a battue. The result is recorded across the way
at St. George's, where the equestrian casualties
are deposited. Someone suggested to the Duke
yesterday that the ducks might more easily be
snared. His reply, as usual, was vigorous.

RJD.B:S DIARY

Teixeira de Mattos, the Dutch translator, took
me to-day to Pembroke Gardens to see Samuel
Smiles, the author of Self -Help. I thought he had
died years and years ago. He is, in fact, nearly
ninety years old, and very feeble. The old gentle-
man is more proud of the fact that he was once
secretary of the South-Eastern Railway than of
his literary efforts. He told me that he began
life as a medical man in Scotland, but could not
make a living, so he became editor of the Leeds
Times, and then a railwayman. He thinks
George and Robert Stephenson were extra-
ordinary men. Also James Nasmyth ; and he is
sure that women in England have more freedom
now than they have ever had. A kindly old
gentleman with a sense of humour.*

His Majesty the King came back from his
Sandringham shooting party to-day. I saw him
in his carriage driving down Pall Mall with his
customary big cigar in his lips. He had with him
Herr von Pfyffer, his German secretary, which
leads one to believe that His Majesty is preparing
himself for a visit either to or from his much-
beloved nephew, the German Kaiser. The latter
always tries to speak English with his august
uncle and King Edward, who for some reason or
other has never taken William to his bosom in-
variably retaliates in German.

Further down the street I ran into General
k Kelly-Kenny, one of the heroes of the Boer War.

* Samuel Smiles died in 1904.

DECEMBER, 1901

He has just come home. He thinks the war is
likely to last several years longer. " It wouldn't
last a month/ 1 he said, " if some of these poli-
ticians like Campbell-Bannerman and 'Bob*
Reid [Lord Loreburn] and Lloyd George were
not so indiscreet in making pro-Boer speeches."

At lunch to-day at the Cafe Royal there was
John Philip Sousa, the conductor of the famous
American band. He has just been playing before
the King and Queen at Sandringham. He says
the thing that struck him most was the sim-
plicity of it all. He expected to see crowns and
coronets and tiaras all over the place. Instead of
that " the King came in from shooting looking
just like any old farmer in Kentucky. What did
he like best in our programme? Well, I think he
was divided between ' Swanee River ' and ' Rule
Britannia !' He's very musical."

December 7, 1901.

George Lewis, the lawyer, tells me that
Whitaker Wright is to come up for public exami-
nation at the Bankruptcy Court next month to
explain the collapse of the British America
Corporation, the London and Globe, and the dis-
appearance of the immense profits made in the Le
Roi No. 2 " deal." The disappearance of a
capital of 1,500,000 in one company, which now
has only 157 left, will be another question to
answer. Rufus Isaacs [Lord Reading] will prob-

149

JUX&V DIARY

ably cross-examine him, and if he does it will be
a duel of wits, for Wright is a wizard with figures,
and the great lawyer knows the Stock Exchange
in and out. Meanwhile, Whitaker Wright con-
tinues to live at Lea Park, in Surrey, with its
wonderful artificially made lake over the smok-
ing-room. His town house in Park Lane, next to
Lord Londonderry's house, is still open. The
Marquis of Dufferin, ex-Viceroy of India, who
was one of Wright's " shop window " directors,
has lost a vast sum in these City enterprises. He
has, I hear, retired to Clandeboye, terribly upset
at the collapse.*

The new Aero Club is very active, and proposes
to make ballooning a popular pastime. This
morning I met the Hon. Charlie Rolls, insepar-
able from his autocar, on his way to the Crystal
Palace, where he is to fly this afternoon. He tells
me that the club proposes to organise a series of
balloon flights next spring, and to offer some big
prizes. Later in the day I had a call from the
Rev. J. M. Bacon, the little parson aeronaut a
sky pilot in more senses than one who lives at
Newbury. He wants to do some night ascents
and photograph St. Paul's dome by moonlight.
" I was stepping into the car of my balloon the
other day," he said, " when a man who evidently
doesn't like me came along and stopped. He

* Whitaker Wright committed suicide in the Law Courts
two years later, after being sentenced to seven years* im-
prisonment for fraud.

150

DECEMBER, 1901

pointed at me and said to a man with him : ' Look
at one gasbag about to carry another/ I turned
round and nearly forgot my cloth. What I meant
to say was c You can go to hell.' I checked my-
self and merely glared. 'All right,' he cried.
* Don't explode. Your balloon will do that for
you soon enough.' "

Mr. Rolls told me that the Automobile Club
are going to propose that they will no longer
oppose the compulsory fixing of identification
numbers or letters on autocars provided that the
absurd twelve mile limit is abolished and the
speed limit is left open, so that people may only
be prosecuted when they drive dangerously.
They are much cheered by Mr. Henry Chaplin's
[Viscount Chaplin] public statement that in his
opinion twenty-five miles per hour is not an ex-
cessive speed, and it is not dangerous provided
brakes are sound and drivers are safe. The prin-
cipal danger, to my mind, is still the difficulty of
controlling restive horses, particularly on coun-
try roads, when swift moving autocars approach.

Potter, the bootmaker in Regent Street, near
Portland Place, is dead, and I hear his business is
closed. I have alternated between him and the
old shop in the arcade of Her Majesty's Opera
House in Pall Mall [Carlton Hotel]. Latterly
I find that manyj>eople are taking to ready-made
boots on the American plan. They are quite
cheap, from 155. to < I per pair, against the hand-
made price of i 155., but in the end I think the

R.D.B.'s DIARY

ready-made boot is dearer. Also it is not always
made of real leather.

December 8, 1901.

There have been some fine medieval scenes in
the House of Lords before the Court of Claims,
and also some fine fees for the lawyers. Mr. G.
Sotheron-Estcourt claims, as owner of the manor
of Shipton Moyne, to be Chief Larderer to His
Majesty; the Earl of Denbigh demands his right
to be present at the Coronation as Grand Carver;
Sir W. Anstruther as Hereditary Grand Carver
of Scotland; Lieut.-Colonel Lambert as the
Waterer, and the Marquis of Ormonde as the
Chief Butler of Ireland. Miss Wilshere desires
to serve the King on Coronation Day with the
first silver cup, but most of this was ruled out for
the very good reason that there is to be no Corona-
tion banquet.

There is a great fight on for the office of
Hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain between the
Earl of Ancaster, the Marquis of Cholmondeley,
Earl Carrington, and the Duke of Atholl. But
they will have to go before the House of Lords
Committee of Privileges.

Lord Robert Cecil, K.C., tells me that he
has been briefed to appear on behalf of Mr.
Scrymgeour, who is competing with Lord Lauder-
dale to bear the standard of Scotland. The fight
goes back to 1670. The Duke of Newcastle claims

152

DECEMBER, 1901

to " support the right arm of His Majesty while
he is holding the sceptre," and he has won against
Lord Shrewsbury.

I hear Mr. Haldane, K.C. [Viscount Haldane],
who is leader of the House of Lords Bar, has been
briefed heavily on behalf of the Lord Chamber-
lain contestants.

For the second time this week I have, inadvert-
ently, given a hansom cabman half a sovereign
instead of sixpence. I have done it before; so
have most people who do not carry a sovereign
case and persist in mixing up all their currency
in their pockets gold, silver, and bronze. I can
generally distinguish a sovereign in the dark, but
the half coin is too near the sixpence in form and
feel. Some day perhaps we shall have a change.
Lord Rowton, who, as Monty Corry, was
Disraeli's private secretary and projected the
Rowton Houses, told me some time ago that he
had proposed to "Black Michael" that half-
sovereigns should have a hole in them, like
Chinese cash, in order to distinguish them, but
Sir Michael laughed at him.

I had to go and see Lord Rothschild this morn-
ing at his office in St. Swithin's Lane. Walter
Long had warned me that if I wanted to succeed
in my errand [it had something to do with a
political meeting] I would do well to make a mis-
statement of fact on which he could correct me.
The first thing the benevolent-looking old gentle-
man said was : " What do you think of the Liberal

'S3

RJ).B.*s DIARY

chances for the next election?" "Oh," I said
airily, " I think they have a very good chance of
success." I knew they hadn't a dog's chance.
" How are they going to do it?" I replied that
I thought Campbell Banner-man's pro-Boer
speeches had put him out of court as leader, and
that either Harcourt or Asquith would succeed
him and be successful. Lord Rothschild sat bolt
upright. Then, calling to his brother Alfred, who
sat at a little table at the end of the big room,
he cried out : " Listen to this pundit. He doesn't
know what he is talking about. C.-B. remains
leader and he will lead them to defeat. Mark my
words." He was immensely pleased and shook
me warmly by the hand and granted my re-
quest.

December Q, 1901.

Dined on Saturday night at the Mansion House
with Sir Joseph Dimsdale, the Lord Mayor and
junior M.P. for the City. He is a great swell in
the City and no end of a past grand officer of
Freemasons, and as the Coronation will come in
his term he reasonably expects to be more than
the knight he now is. He will certainly be made
a baronet and since he will have to carry the
crystal sceptre of the City before His Majesty
during the coronation ceremony, he will not
escape the Victorian Order. [He got it, a
K.C.V.O., and a baronetcy in 1902}. Last night

154

DECEMBER, 1901

was Sir Joseph's first free evening since he be-
came Lord Mayor a month ago. He has to go to
a City dinner every evening.

Lunched at Mr. Henry Lucy's (Toby M.P.)
Mr. Choate, the American Ambassador, Earl
Cawdor, chairman of the Great Western Railway
[afterwards First Lord of the Admiralty],
Marion Crawford, the author, Sydney Whitman,
the correspondent, Sir Michael Hicks Beach,
(" Black Michael,") the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, who is selling his country place in Wilt-
shire to the State for 100,000, to be added to the
Salisbury Plain camp; several ladies and Sir
Charles Dilke, who sat next to me and told me
some interesting stories about gardening and
fruit culture. He is a most versatile man and it is
undoubted that if his career had not been so ruth-
lessly checked he would in time have reached the
highest post in political life.

At Charing Cross this morning I was nearly
run down by Lady Charles Beresford's brougham.
She said she was off to Rome, where she has taken
a flat for the winter. With her was her sister,
Mrs. Gerald Paget, and they were disputing as
usual, about Woman's Rights. Mrs. Paget is
" advanced " (under the tutelage of Sarah
Grand) and Lady Charles an out-and-out Tory,
who says all political women should be banished.
Lady Charles is like a Frenchwoman, in that she
is most generous in the use of rouge. Lord
Charles, who is second in command in the Medi-

R.D.B/S DIARY

terranean on board the Ramillies, will soon be
coming home. There is talk of putting him up
for Parliament in Hampstead. He is anxious
to come back and have another go at " My Lords
of the Admiralty."

Arthur Collins told me that the pantomime at
Drury Lane this season is going to beat the record
for gorgeousness. He had devised a wonderful
dragon with electric eyes and steam pipes inside,
but has had to give it up because the contraption
gets so hot inside that the workmen who operate
it go frantic with terror and rage. At a dress
rehearsal yesterday, just as a singer was in the
middle of a sentimental song and the dragon up-
stage was twisting its eyes, the whole theatre was
startled with :" Oh .... murder ! 'Ow long is
this d . . . tJhinggoin'onburnin'meup?" They
are afraid to risk it on the first night.

December 10, igoi.

I remember going to Vienna about ten years
ago to be shocked at the sight of several women
smoking cigars. We appear to be progressing to-
wards that end here. After dinner last night at
the Carlton I saw four women in the lounge
smoking cigarettes quite unconcernedly. One of
them had a golden case, and she was what is called
a chain smoker. Dr. Gunton, who was with me,
told me that most women now smoke at home.
"That's what makes them so nervy," he said,

156

DECEMBER, 1901

" but when I tax them with over-smoking they
nearly always deny it."

In the new Kingsway street, which will one day
be a splendid avenue, I bought this morning a
fine Queen Anne walnut table, with drawers, all
in excellent state, for i los. Also a pair of
exquisitely-made Queen Anne-style Sheffield
plate candelabra for 2, and a mahogany knife-
box for ten shillings. They were all worth much
more. The dealer wanted to press on me a dozen
linen-fold oak panels for 3, but though they
were quite genuine, and in good condition, I
declined, because I can get all I want in Essex
for half the money.

" B.P." [General Baden-Powell] is tired of the
adulation which he gets wherever he goes. He
says he still cannot go to a theatre or public place
without being cheered at and mobbed. The hero
of Mafeking is going back to Africa this month
to take charge of a new force of Colonial police.
There will be 20,000 men and 30,000 horses to
cover a territory of 200,000 square miles in the
Transvaal and Orange River Colony. The late
Queen Victoria never forgave him for having
sketched his own portrait on the emergency
stamps which he devised for Mafeking during the
siege.

The revival of lolanthe, after nineteen
years, has brought Mr. W. S. Gilbert from his
retirement at Harrow, to superintend the re-
hearsals. He is very sad about it all, for both Sir

R.D.B.'s DIARY

Arthur Sullivan and D'Oyly Carte have died in
the past year or so, and he misses all the old faces.
George Grossmith [father of the present G.G.] is
now an entertainer, Jessie Bond, the original
" lolanthe," has retired ; Miss Fortescue, whose
fairyness in the piece inflamed the passion of a
real and not a fairy peer, and won her damages
for breach of promise, devotes herself to a
superior art; and Rutland Barrington is singing
at Daly's. Gilbert is very critical of the new
lot.

I saw a large hatchment with a great coat-of-
arms over the portico of a house in Grosvenor
Square to-day, the first for some years, to indicate
the death of the owner. This fashion of display-
ing mourning seems to go more and more into
disuse.

December u,

I took half an hour after dinner last night, on
my way to the office, and looked in at the Royal
Aquarium to watch the big ping-pong tourna-
ment. There was a crowd around the eight
tables. Some of the play was shocking. I could
have done better on a kitchen table. The best
work was done by Roper Barrett, the tennis
player, who defeated Launceston Elliott. Mr. T.
Jeffries was eventually declared the winner over
all. The Aquarium was terribly cold and
draughty in this dreadful wintry weather. Two

158

DECEMBER, 1901

rival ping-pong associations are now in full
swing, and it threatens to become one of the
national pastimes.*

Commander Kelly, of the United States Navy,
came to see me to-day, and told me about the new
Holland submersible destroyer Fulton, in which
he went down off Long Island and remained
under water for fifteen hours. English and
French boats of this description have been sub-
merged for various hours, but none so long as
this, so far the severest test. The crew slept, ate,
and played cards, and on coming up said they had
been in no way inconvenienced by the battle of
the elements which had been raging above. Com-
mander Kelly thinks that in ten years there will
be no surface ships of war on the water.

I lunched to-day with Charles Frohman, and
he informed me that in his opinion England
would always be the supply depot for American
theatres. "You see," he said, "our American
young men will not go in for authorship because
they can do better in commerce. When a young
man of talent comes out of Yale or Harvard he
is at once snapped up by Wall Street with a good
salary, and he has no inclination to risk failure
and possible penury. It is different here. I
simply have to come to London for plays, and I
think it will always be so." Frohman is interested
in Bluebell in Fairyland, which is playing at the

*The Royal Aquarium was in Westminster, now the
great Wesleyan hall.

159

R.D.B.'s DIARY

Vaudeville with Seymour Hicks and Ellaline
Terriss in the cast, and he thinks that Hicks is
the most intelligent actor on the English stage
to-day. " Some day," he says, " Hicks will make
a hit as Hamlet." The great little man and I
talked reminiscently of the days long ago when I
first met him as an advance agent for Haverley's
minstrels.*

Now that straw has been removed from the
floors of our omnibuses, the London General
Company has decided to pursue its onward
march. I came down to Fleet Street to-night in
an omnibus brilliantly lighted by an acetylene
lamp, so strong that one could almost read with
it. The conductor told me that all the cars are
to be lighted with acetylene.

December 13, 1901.

A letter to-day from John Redmond, in New
York, where he proposes to embark for home this
week. Says he has been promised a goodly sum
for the Irish Party, though his visit was not
primarily financial. He complains that the
collections are becoming attenuated owing to the
fact that the Irish servant girls, who used to con-
tribute regularly every week throughout the
country, are not so much interested as they were
ten years ago. Even the Irish music-hall actor,
who was such a great propagandist with his senti-

* Charles Frohman was drowned in the Lusitania.
1 60

DECEMBER,

mental songs about " the dear old country " is
becoming scarce and not so popular. " We had a
meeting the other evening at the Cooper Union
Hall," writes John Redmond, " and the audience
sang * Kathleen Mavourneen.' Only a few of
them seemed to know the words, which shows a
great change."

Lady Londonderry does not like the photo-
graph of her which one of the illustrated papers
printed this week. She thinks a photograph
should be really life-like if it is to be useful, and
she has sent me one (with a characteristic note)
which I think will not come under such criticism.
Her daughter, Lady Helen Stewart, is to marry
young Lord Stavordale, heir to Lord Ilchester,
next month, and it will be the wedding of the
year, for she is not only a great figure among the
younger women of society, but she will one day,
in due course, become mistress of Holland House
and its great traditions. I presume the wedding
will be at St. George's, Hanover Square, since
that is now the most fashionable church in town.

I bought some Christmas champagne at Berry
Brothers to-day. The duty has gone up from 6s.
to 7s. 6d. [it is 155. now in 1930], and prices look
to me much too high even for a luxury beverage.
The best Clicquot, Heidsieck, Moet Chandon,
and so on are fetching about 935. There are
various less fashionable brands at about 855., and
this is a fair advance on six or seven years ago.
Russia and the United States are yearly taking

161

R.D.B:S DIARY

more and more of the French sweet champagnes,
and if prices continue to rise here I shall
not be surprised to see the wine go out of use
altogether. Burgundies and clarets are much
more popular.

Christmas trade is not very good, I am told.
The majority of the stuff one sees in the shops
is of cheap foreign manufacture, mostly German.
People are going about saying they will not buy
German goods because of the violent anti-English
pro-Boer attitude of the Germans, but they buy
German goods just the same. There is not much
to choose between the Germans and the French in
the matter of pro-Boerism. Harry Marks, of the
Financial News, told me yesterday that he was
several times grossly insulted in the streets of
Paris. "A bas les Anglais" and "Rosbif"
appear to be favourite terms of endearment on
the boulevards.

December 14, ipoi.

Captain Nicholas, who is in charge of the royal
mews at Buckingham Palace, showed me over the
place. The long line of loose boxes, filled with
the famous Hanoverian creams which draw the
State carriages, made a most impressive spectacle.
The horses are tended with great care, and are
exercised daily by the small regiment of grooms
who are employed at the mews all the year round.
The creams trace their ancestry to the first four

162

DECEMBER, igoi

that were brought over from Hanover by King
George I., and no other breed has been employed
in State processions.

"What about the automobile?" I asked
Captain Nicholas.

" Not a chance," he replied. " These creams
will be employed by the Kings of England so long
as there are kings." *

Max O'Rell, otherwise Paul Blouet, who is on
a lecturing tour in the United States, has sent me
a copy of his latest book, Her Royal Highness
Woman, with a characteristic note, to the effect
that " it is the best book I have ever written." He
has sent me every first copy of his many books,
and always with the same modest description. I
have often asked him to write his experiences as
a French prisoner at Sedan and of his part in the
Commune fighting, but he prefers to devote him-
self to John Bull and his people. More money
in it.

Phil May is talking of producing a weekly
illustrated paper on the lines of Punch. He is
encouraged thereto by the success of his Annual.
He will have to be careful not to meet the fate
of his colleague, Harry Furniss, who deserted
Punch to found Lika Joko, and made a dismal
failure. Besides, I do not think May is now
physically strong enough to go through the strain
of founding a weekly. Furniss told me the other
day that in spite of his great success on Punch,

* The creams are no longer in the mews. 1930.
163

R.D.B/S DIARY

George du Maurier never received more than
i ,000 a year, and had to make up the rest by
lecturing; which was not much. Affluence only
came to du Maurier eight or nine years ago
with Trilby and Peter Ibbetson. The Harpers
paid him the enormous sum of 10,000 on
the delivery of the MSS. of the latter in-
different story.

Had a call to-day from Michael Maybrick, the
famous baritone, who said he had received a
piteous letter from the old Baroness de Roques,
Mrs. Maybrick's mother, asking him to help
her in her appeal for her daughter's release
from prison! Mrs. Maybrick, his sister-in-law
[sentenced for life for the poisoning of her
husband, was released in 1904], has been in
Woking and St. Albans prisons for sixteen years,
and her mother has spent her fortune in attempt-
ing to obtain her freedom.

December 75,

Harry Cust, Schomberg McDonnell (Lord
Salisbury's secretary), and I lunched at the Cafe
Royal. We were discussing the abomination of
mud splashes to which pedestrians are subjected
from horses' hoofs in the streets. We finally
came to a wager. Each of us was to walk a certain
distance and the one who came back without a
spot of mud on his collar was to have I from
the other two. If two were free, the remaining

164

DECEMBER, 1901

third would have to pay each I, and if all were
free, the bet was off. We were to return at once
by cab to the Cafe Royal and compare results.
Each man was to walk close to the kerb and not
try to dodge mud splashes ; Cust to Hyde Park
Corner and along Piccadilly ; McDonnell to the
Haymarket and the Strand to Wellington Street,
and I to Oxford Circus.

I had not gone two hundred yards when I
received a great blob of mud on my neck and
collar and so did not consider it worth while going
on, and returned. Within ten minutes Cust and
McDonnell also came back, each fully decorated
with mud splashes. All bets off!

My hansom cab-driver who calls for me every
morning at two o'clock after we have sent the
paper to press informed me this morning that his
brother, who is also a cabman, is taking lessons
in automobile driving in the hope that some day
he will be able to drive a horseless cab. I told
him it would be a good idea if he, too, took lessons,
but he shouted through the opening at the top
that he wasn't going to waste his money on such
foolishness.

" Them automobiles," he said, " are all right
as playthings, but you can't depend on 'em. Be-
sides, they are dangerous and you can't guarantee
getting your fare to the place he wants to reach.
You'll never beat my old 'orse."

I wonder if he is right. You don't always reach
your destination by motor, but I do not think the

165

RJ>Jl.'s DIARY

hansom cab has much to brag about on the score
of safety, especially on a slippery road.

Arthur Lawrence, the editor of Cecil Harms-
worth's Liberal Review, has sent me a cheque for
10 for my article on my week-end cottage
experiences in Essex ; which is considered fair pay
for 3,000 words. A good many amateur writers
are breaking into the pages of the reviews these
days, and that keeps the prices down, for these
amateurs are quite pleased to see their effusions
in print without emolument. Harper's Magazine
has sent me a cheque for 20 for an article on
the 100 Years 5 War in Achin. That is somewhat
nearer the market value, but I notice that in
America also there is a tendency occasionally to
go outside the ranks of the professional writers.
Julian Ralph, the war correspondent states that
on several occasions Harper's have paid him as
high as 100 for an article, but he has had to
carry his own expenses in such cases.

December i6 y IQOI.

A neat little egg-box came to me to-day. It
contained a dozen nice brown eggs, on top of
which was a card : " Compliments of the season
from Dan Leno." Few people know that this most
popular of all comedians is an agriculturalist as
well ! He has a " farm " of an acre or so back of
his house in Clapham Park, and there he grows
cabbages and potatoes, poultry, butter, eggs, and

166

DECEMBER, 1901

so on. He is probably the highest paid funny
man in the world.

My friend X , who took part in the march

on Peking against the Boxers, has come back, and
has presented me with a magnificent Japanese
sword, with jewelled hilt and wonderfully
fashioned scabbard. It was a present from one
of the Japanese Mikados to the Son of Heaven,
and X. says he bought it for next to nothing at
auction from a Russian soldier who had looted
it from the palace. I have noticed for some time
in Bond Street windows a varied collection of jade
ornaments, silken gowns, and exquisite carvings,
all of it part of the international army's loot. The
rifling of the Chinese treasure house a collection
of works of art that has occupied the labours of
centuries reflects no credit on our civilisation;
but I am always glad to hear that the British were
not to the forefront in looting.

The big storm that has now passed was the
worst for a quarter of a century. Many places
have been isolated for two or three days. Never
have so many telegraph lines been down, and, as
for snow, the usual " oldest inhabitant " tales
are prevalent in the north. The land lines have
been so disrupted that on Saturday the cables to
America were held up, and there were rumours in
New York that London was in the throes of a
panic.

I met > to-day for the first time Mrs. Glyn
(Elinor Glyn), the much-talked-of Essex society

167

RJ).B.'s DIARY

woman whose Visits of Elizabeth have created so
much interest in and out of London. I saw her
first at Mrs. Arthur Paget's Charity Tableaux at
Her Majesty's Theatre. She is a striking figure,
and is full of new ideas on literature, and so full
of energy that nothing will deter her from finding
expression for them.

At dinner last night I met Mr. F. C. Burnand,
who was for so many years editor of Punch. He
had been connected with the paper for over forty
years. We talked of pantomimes which are just
now in full preparation, and he says it is hard
work writing them. He is joint author of this
year's effort at Drury Lane. He is an inveterate
punster. While at Eton he explained his un-
willingness to play football because he was " more
shinned against than sinning." Later in a con-
versation with Cardinal Manning he said he was
inclined to the stage rather than the Church as a
vocation. The Cardinal retorted : " You might as
well say that to be a cobbler is a vocation."
Burnand answered quickly: "In that case I
should still have the cure of soles." He told me
that his Black-Eyed Susan had a record run of
800 nights, and in his seventy years of life he has
perpetrated over 100 plays.

December 77,

1 have had some correspondence recently with
Mr. Clemens (Mark Twain), who writes to me

168

DECEMBER, 1901

from Hartford, in Connecticut, that he has had an
interesting controversy with the great Professor
Virchow, who lives in Berlin. When Mr. Clemens
was in London a little while ago he lived in
Tedworth Square, Chelsea, where I used to go
occasionally to play a game of pool with him. He
was then deeply interested in an Austrian food
preparation. With the late John M. Bergheim,
the Galician oil engineer, he formed the Plasmon
Company. Mark Twain said he was going to re-
cover the fortune he lost in his book-publishing
venture. He began to bombard the scientists of
Europe with letters on the subject of food values,
metabolism, and so on. The Virchow correspond-
ence went on over a period of years. Now Mark
Twain writes :

" I have had a stunner from Virchow on what
he calls Cellular Chirography. I have never seen
so many long words. They twirl and twist like
a cowboy's lariat. I have responded to-day by
sending him a copy of my new book, The Man
that Corrupted Hadleyburg. Let him chew on
that awhile."

The police are very active now in suppressing
omnibus racing, which is becoming dangerous. I
was on a Road Car omnibus to-day in Whitehall.
A London General Company omnibus pulled up
alongside. Next came a pirate. They all started
at once, and the drivers lashed the horses into a
gallop, the while the vehicles rocked like boats.
The passengers got excited, and one man's top hat

169

RJDJ&.'s DIARY

blew off. When we got to Trafalgar Square the
Road Car was leading by a length, and the pirate,
with his starved horses, was one hundred yards
behind. The new rate of a penny from Charing
Cross to the Bank seems to act as a magnet to
the former point, and the rivals take great risks
in getting there first.

Mr. Pirrie [Lord Pirrie], of Harland and
Wolff's shipbuilding yard, gave me to-day a
pamphlet about liquid fuel for steamships. He
thinks highly of it, and says that if proper supplies
of oil could be arranged he sees no reason why
coal bunkers should not be discarded. He told
me that Sir Marcus Samuel [Lord Bearsted]
and Sir Fortescue Flannery, M.P., the marine
engineer, have almost convinced him, but he is
not yet sure what effect the proposed fuel will
have on the speed of liners.

Charles Balch, the manager of the Absent-
Minded Beggar Fund, which has been raised by
public subscription for the benefit of the soldiers
in the Boer War, has asked me to go down to
Alton to inspect the new buildings, which have
cost a mint of money. They have taken over
100,000. Mrs. Brown Potter's nightly recita-
tion of Kipling's Cook's Son, Duke's Son has been
the greatest money-getter for the fund. She re-
cited last night at the Hotel Cecil, and filled two
soap boxes with sovereigns and half-sovereigns.

170

DECEMBER, igoi

December /<?, IQOI.

Of all the hundreds of men about town whom
one meets there are few more picturesque than
old Captain Blyth, who talked for a few minutes
in Piccadilly this afternoon. He is always
immaculate. His hat is shiny, his boots are
shiny, and his spirit scintillates. He told me of
the good old days in the early sixties when he
drove a coach from London to Reading as an
amateur whip, and of the people whom he used to
drive. Captain Blyth is the hero of a great story
that is told of him. Once he was having his hat
ironed in a hat-shop in St. James's Street. A
certain Archbishop of Canterbury entered and,
taking the bare-headed Captain Blyth for a shop-
man, handed him his shovel hat and said : " Have
you got a hat like that?"

"No, I haven't," answered Blyth, to the
surprise and horror of the archbishop, " and if
I had I'm damned if I'd put the pesky thing on
my head !"

Lord Rosebery has come out of his lone furrow
at last and made a speech at Chesterfield, which
looks like a bid for the resumption of Liberal
leadership. The Liberals are terribly puzzled
because it was an old-time Whig speech almost
designed to drag Joseph Chamberlain and the
Duke of Devonshire away from the Liberal-
Unionists into a resurrected Whig organisation.
But while Lord Rosebery is threatening to make

17*

R.D.B.'s DIARY

six more important speeches it does not look like
much more than speechifying. " C. B." is re-
ported to have said that Rosebery is too rich and
intellectual to be much of a danger to the
Unionists, and too indeterminate to be of much
use to the Liberals.

Billington, the hangman, is dead. He was
something of a character, and he took great pride
in his " profession," but he had to hang Patrick
McKenna at Manchester a fortnight ago, and
that upset him, for McKenna was a bosom friend
and townsman of his at Bolton. Billington's
complaint recently was that the authorities do
not seem to appreciate the importance of the
hangman as they formerly did. He used to get
oysters and champagne for breakfast before
executions. Now this has been reduced to bacon
and eggs and tea; but the fee of 10 remains.
Billington always maintained that Dr. Neill
Cream, the notorious woman poisoner, was
" Jack the Ripper." On the scaffold Cream

suddenly called out: " I am Jack ." Before

he could get any further Billington pulled
the bolt and Cream was no more. Billington,
however, was convinced that had he waited a
second longer the words "the Ripper" would
have been uttered. The mutilation of the White-
chapel victims was undoubtedly done by a hand
skilled in surgery, and the murders ceased after
Cream's arrest.

172

DECEMBER, 1901

December 20, igoi.

Everybody is discussing the affair at Birming-
ham where a crowd of 40,000 people surrounded
the town hall and wrecked all its windows because
Mr. Lloyd George, M.P., was trying to make a
pro-Boer speech. Lloyd George was finally
smuggled out. Disguised as a policeman he
marched out with a file of constables, and police-
man 8/D, greatly daring, followed in the M.P/s
clothes. Lloyd George fell out of the ranks at the
word of command and got his clothes back later.
He puts it all down to the Chamberlain party
which rules Birmingham, and will not hear any
side but their own. The uproar at the town hall
was terrific, and the place looks like a ruined
factory.

The new hotel in Piccadilly, which Mr. Sherry
was reported to have in contemplation on the site
of Walsingham House [now the Ritz] is not to be
built after all. Lord Walsingham sent down a
letter to-night saying there is no truth in the re-
port, and that Walsingham House is not to be
sold. Mr. Harris, of the Carlton, says there are
enough first-class hotels in London to meet all
demands, but judging by the requests for rooms
for next year's coronation, this does not appear
to be correct.

Moberly Bell (manager of The Times) told
me to-night not for publication that old de
Blowitz, the famous Paris correspondent, is

173

R.D.B.'s DIARY

coming to the end of his tether. He is rather
feeble now and somewhat exigeant as well. They
have had in training a young American, named
Fullerton, who, Moberly Bell thinks, will be able
to take de Blowitz's place soon. To my mind the
Paris correspondence of The Times has not been
as good lately as that of the otherwise heavy Daily
News, whose correspondent, Mrs. Crawford,
appears to lead a long way.

Mr. Gladstone used to say that while de
Blowitz was pontifical and only occasionally
newsy and Mrs. Crawford entertaining and
modern and represented his Liberal view-
point he was yet far more impressed with
the daily despatches of Mr. Farman of the
Standard.*

Business seems to be encroaching everywhere.
Victoria Street, which is taken up entirely with
residential flats, is being commercialised. Here
and there the ground floors are being taken up
by shops. They say that the American Legation,
which has been in Victoria Street for years, is
likely not to renew its lease on expiry. That, too,
I suppose, will be turned into a shop some day.
Somehow or other residential flats do not flourish
in England as they do elsewhere. The English-
man prefers his house and his garden. Besides,

*The old Standard in 1901 was noted for its foreign
despatches, and the Daily News was not then reduced in
price and form. Mr. Farman was the father of the motor
and flying machine Farman Brothers.

174

DECEMBER, 1901

flats, if they are at all good, are dearer than
houses.

December 21, 1901.

A call this afternoon from Mr. " Monty "
Guest, who had a considerable bundle of Court
gossip. We talked about the coming Honours
List, and he says there has been a good deal of
nonsensical gossip about two rumoured peerages

for two eminent financiers, Sir E and Sir

T , but there is nothing in it. I ventured the

remark that if Whitaker Wright had not come a
cropper he would have had a good chance for an
honour of some sort, but he would not agree. The
young King of Spain, whose coronation is to take
place early in the year, is to have a signal honour ;
also the Czar, who, so they say, is so much like his
cousin the Prince of Wales [King George V.] that
they might easily be mistaken one for the other.

The King and Queen will soon move to
Buckingham Palace, and when they vacate
Marlborough House the Prince and Princess of
Wales will transfer to the latter place from York
House.

I have seen the completed plans for the new
processional road in the Mall, with a picture of
the Arch through which traffic is to pass in and
out of Charing Cross. It will be a great improve-
ment, and when the Mall is widened and made
presentable and Buckingham Palace is finally re-

R.D.B.'s DIARY

faced the road should be worth while.

Labouchere has been libelling John Kensit, the
Church reformer, by saying of him in Truth that
he is " a publisher of a class of literature which,
under the guise of demonstrating its sectarian
rancour, obviously appeals simply to the depraved
appetite of pruriency." These long words have
upset Kensit, especially as they constitute com-
ment on a libel suit which he is bringing against
another paper. He tried for an injunction to-day
and failed. Very angry. This, too, on the top of
a row in an Essex church on Sunday when John
K denounced a too ritualistic vicar for wear-
ing gorgeous vestments, swinging incense, elevat-
ing the Host and lighting great altar candles. The
vicar was a former middle-weight boxer and did
not hesitate to " brawl " in a sense more literal
than that applied to the term in ecclesiastical

circles ; and John K came off second best.

He is a sincere, honest and most energetic
fanatic.*

I went to the Savage Club on Saturday night.
Took with me Sir Evelyn Wood, who is soon to
be a Field-Marshal, and is to command the great
new training camp on Salisbury Plain when the
war is over. We were entertained, as usual, by
Mr. Odell, the old actor, who seems to go on for
ever singing "Harvest Home"; and Charles
Collette, who was once a Guardsman, but is now

* Mr. Kensit was killed at Liverpool in 1902 by a stone
thrown at him by someone in a crowd.

176

DECEMBER,

a drawing-room and music-hall entertainer.

Between the acts at Daly's Theatre last night,
where Ada Reeve is the new San Toy, George
Edwardes outlined to me a scheme for a musical
setting of Bret Harte's Luck of Roaring Camp,
which he thinks might go well if Morton and
Monckton put their hands to it in collaboration.
I asked him why he does not get Bret Harte him-
self to lend a hand. Edwardes did not know that
he has been living in England for years. He is
down at Camberley, none too well, and Edwardes
said he would write to him and, if necessary, go
down and see him.

December 22, ipoi.

Richard Croker, the Tammany " Boss," has
returned from New York after a most crushing
defeat at the polls, in which the Reformers once
more take control of the city, only to lose it again
in a year or two, for Tammany always bobs up
again stronger than before. I saw the Boss at
the Savoy this afternoon, and renewed an old
acquaintance, for I knew him when he was plain
" Hickory-Faced Dick," with a place far down in
the Tammany hierarchy. He says he has finished
with politics, intends to give up his racing stables
in England, and train solely in Ireland. He is a
taciturn, rather surly, extremely domineering old
man, with a natural capacity for managing men,
and with not much refinement of manner. He

177

RJ).B.'s DIARY

was once a brakesman on a railway, but that is
many years ago, and since he left off work he has
accumulated a vast fortune.

That versatile writer Julia Frankau [mother of
Gilbert Frankau], who, as " Frank Danby," has
gained an international reputation as a novelist,
has sent me her latest literary effort. It is a book
on prints which, I feel certain, will one day be
regarded as authoritative and valuable to collec-
tors. It is wonderfully illustrated with eighteenth
century colour prints ; a fine series of essays on
stipple engravings and their work in colour. Mrs.
Frankau, with her talented sister, Mrs. Aria and
their brilliant brother "Jimmy" Davis, the
librettist of so many Gaiety successes, represents
a remarkable family.

Madame Patti sang at the Albert Hall last
night. I did not go, but saw her later at her hotel.
It was one of her now familiar " farewell " appear-
ances, and she laughed gaily when I reminded her
of a conversation at her castle, Craig-y-nos, in
Wales, ten years ago, when she vowed that she
had made her irrevocably final, farewell appear-
ance. Patti said last night: "I had to sing
'Home, Sweet Home/ of course, at the end.
They never let me off without it and do you
know I forgot the words! I got to 'Midst
pleasures and palaces,' and could not for the
world think of the line, so I just mumbled it."
She was full of praise of a young pianist called
William Backhaus, who played last night.

DECEMBER, 1901

I have just seen the drawings of the new
postage stamp to take the place of those bearing
the likeness of Queen Victoria. The portrait of
King Edward is excellent, and the design classical
and pleasing. The penny stamp is to be red and
the halfpenny green. Mr. Henniker-Heaton,
M.P., the postal reformer, is agitating for the
penny stamp to be made general, particularly to
the Colonies and to the United States. Twopence
halfpenny is too much, and blocks communica-
tion overseas.

Every omnibus to-day has been sporting the
Rothschild blue and gold racing colours in cele-
bration of Mr. Leopold Rothschild's annual gift
of a brace of pheasants for each driver and con-
ductor. One driver had a set of yard-long ribbons
on his whip, as well as rosettes on the bridles.
Between four and five thousand birds were
despatched from Gunnersbury Park for this
occasion.

December 23, igoi.

I never knew until to-day that the father of
Mrs. Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes), the famous
writer, is Mr. John Morgan Richards, the leading
man of the American colony in England. Mr.
Richards has an elaborate office at Holborn
Viaduct, where he is the head of a great pill dis-
tributing business, which spends large sums in
advertising every year. He has been in England

R.D.B:S DIARY

over a quarter of a century without losing his
American accent. England, next to America, is
the greatest pill swallower in the world, and that,
I learn, is the result of the Education Act of the
'seventies, by which the whole population became
enabled to read advertisements.

I looked in at Bow Street, where Goudie, the
bank clerk, with " Dick " Burge, the pugilist, and
a couple of racing men, are up for the Liverpool
bank frauds, which have created such a sensation.
A great battery of legal guns already on the case,
led by " Charlie " Gill, for the Crown. Goudie is
defended by his fellow townsman, young Mr.
Smith [Lord Birkenhead], who, I am told,
recently distinguished himself in the Guinea Gold
litigation. Mr. Smith had an enviable university
career, and I judge from his manner that he has
not forgotten it. He is a handsome, tall, athletic-
looking young man. I did not hear him speak,
but I am told he has a most attractive voice and a
most picturesque vocabulary. We hear, of course,
the usual prophecies about him Prime Minister,
Lord Chancellor, and so on; the thing that is
always said about promising youngsters. But
young Mr. Smith is not even in Parliament yet,
and he has no family connections to push him on.

The King, in his capacity of leading the
fashion, has given an order for a new all-British
automobile of nearly double the horse-power of
his present carriage, in which he has travelled
more than once between Marlborough House and

1 80

DECEMBER, 1901

Windsor as fast as it is done by train. The new
carriage, which is to be made by Daimler, is to
hold six people, with room beside the driver for
a footman. It is to be of the double phaeton type,
and will cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of
1,000.

Another of Queen Victoria's regulations is to go
by the board. Drawing-rooms are to be turned
into Courts, which are to be held at Buckingham
Palace in the evening in future, and presentations
will take place there in the old manner. The
number and dates of these new Courts has not yet
been fixed.

December 24,

Mr. James Gordon Bennett, the proprietor of
the New York Herald, writes to me from the Villa
Namouna at Beaulieu that he has sent Sidney
Whitman, the correspondent, to Germany, to
write a series of articles about Germany's aspira-
tions as a world dominator. " I have picked out
Whitman," he writes, "because he is familiar,
from personal contact, with Bismarck's policy,
which was imperialistic for Continental purposes ;
but this young man now on the throne has gone
beyond that. His idea is to conquer the world
and make us all his vassals. I don't like it, and I
am going to stop him." Mr. Bennett is himself
an autocrat, as I know from my own experience,
and he cannot contemplate another in competi-

181

R.DJ3.'s DIARY

tion, even though he be an anointed emperor.

Women are not to have the monopoly of corsets
in future. In order to enjoy the proper fit of a
frock coat a man should have a snug waist, and
so the tailors are making propaganda for the
coming era of corsets for men. My tailor sent
down a sample for me to inspect to-day, but I did
not view the thing with enthusiasm; nor do I
think that most men of common sense beyond the
Johnnies of Piccadilly and Bond Street will have
anything to do with them.

Something ought to be done by the authorities
to wipe out the scandal of the homeless people
who are forced to sleep out on these wintry nights.
I walked home along the Embankment this
morning at two o'clock with Byron Curtis, editor
of the Standard. Every bench from Blackfriars
to Westminster Bridge was filled with shivering
people, all huddled up men, women, and
children. The Salvation Army people were out
giving away hot broth, but even this was merely
a temporary palliative against the bitter night.
At Charing Cross we encountered a man with his
wife and two tiny children. They had come to
town from Reading to look for work. The man
had lost his few shillings, and they were stranded.
We took them to Charing Cross Station, got them
a hot meal, and beds for the night. This unem-
ployment question is really a great problem. I
talked with Mr. Chamberlain about it the other
day, and he repeated his known sentiments about

DECEMBER,

our Free Trade policy being to blame for loss of
work. If foreign goods were taxed the British
workman would have a chance.

This being the day before Christmas has
brought out everybody for final shopping, I went
in a hansom along Regent Street and down
Tottenham Court Road, where most of the
shoppers congregate. Maple's and Shoolbred's
great establishments were packed with people,
and all the furniture shops in Tottenham Court
Road were thronged. I notice this year a rever-
sion to mahogany rather than the machine-
carved (made in Holland) black oak, with ornate
sideboards. The mahogany furniture must be in
the Chippendale style, which is now so popular.
The black oak is disappearing into the wood-
sheds, for its quality has not been equal to the
strain of half a dozen years. Bond Street, on the
way back, was less crowded. Luxury-buying is
less apparent this year. Everybody is buying
gramophones and ping-pong sets.

December 28, igoi.

I hear through Dr. Jim [Sir Starr Jameson]
that Cecil Rhodes has bought Dalham Hall, near
Newmarket, which he proposes to make his per-
manent English home. Rhodes has never seen
the place. He had a look at some photographs,
which he liked, and a glance at the game book,
which showed that they shot nearly 1,700

183

R.D.B.'s DIARY

partridges in the first four days of this season,
and so he characteristically instructed his agents
to purchase the place . Whether he will ever go
there to live is another matter. Dr. Jim thinks he
is much too restless to do that.

An American business man who came to
London a few days before Christmas to do a
rapid deal came in to see me to-day to tell me
his story of woe. He has been unable to do busi-
ness for a week because Christmas intervened.
" This long break in England," he said, " will one
day be the undoing of this country. Wherever I
go I find the doors locked. Why not have your
Christmas and be done with it? Why make it a
prolonged loaf? If your trade gets badly hurt one
day you may put the damage down to this foolish
Christmas lay-off." He vowed that if this goes
on England will be off the map in twenty years.

A New Year's present came to me to-day in the
form of an exquisitely painted water-colour
sketch with a charming note from the painter,
who is none other than our old friend Joe Lyons,
better known to the world as a dispenser of tea
and buns. The demands of a great business
career have interfered with a promising artistic
career, for it is certain that if Joe Lyons had not
met Mr. Montague Gluckstein he would either
have become a famous painter or writer, for he
paints and writes with equal facility, as is
illustrated by his plays written in conjunction
with Cecil Raleigh and his generally praised

184

DECEMBER, 1901

pictures at various exhibitions. There must be at
least fifty Lyons tea shops in London to-day,
which is remarkable, for ten years ago there were
few bright and attractive places where one could
go for light refreshment.*

When the Baroness de Bazus called to-day,
and put on her card " Just for a chat," I did not
recognise her as Mrs. Frank Leslie, the widow of
the originator of American illustrated journalism.
She still owns Leslie's Weekly, which made a
great fortune in the Civil War, and left her a com-
petency after her husband's death fifteen years
ago. She has now reverted to her father's
ancestral title of Baron de Bazus, conferred by
St. Louis. Madame remained an hour, and
talked on every world subject. Also she stated
emphatically that she never intended to marry
the Marquis de Leuville, the minor poet of
London's first nights, whose glossy curls were so
much in evidence up to a few years ago. Some-
one says that " de Leuville " was only a poetic
fancy; that his real name was Brown or
Tompkins, and that he once painted eyes for a
living at Madame Tussaud's Waxworks. But
that's scandal!

December 29, 1901.

A long dissertation to-day on " Indeterminable
Equations " propounded by my old friend Lo

* In 1930 Lyons' have about 200 rV ops in London.
185

R.D.B.'s DIARY

Feng-Luh, who was for so long private secretary
to Li Hung-Chang, and is now Chinese Minister
in London. Lo is the most erudite, the most per-
sistent, and the most exacting arguer I have ever
met. He is a scholar to his finger-tips, and some-
times fails to hide his irritation with us ignorant
Western barbarians. He told me to-day that
when he travelled with Li Hung-Chang they spent
every spare minute in philosophical argument.
The old man thought Western " civilisation " was
interesting and amusing, but he was sure it could
never last because of the lack of thought.
" Making wheels go round," he used to say, " is
diverting, but it does not improve the mind." Lo
told me that he is soon to go to Russia as
Minister, but he prefers Portland Place to the
Nevsky Prospekt.

The story that the Marquis of Salisbury is to
be made a duke in this New Year's Honours List
is so persistent and vouched for by so many
people who ought to know, that I am almost
giving it credence. I am quite sure, however,
that Lord Salisbury himself is quite indifferent,
and if the honour is to be conferred it must be
because the King is desirous of showing that he
appreciates his great gifts in spite of the consider-
able opposition which the Prime Minister has
offered from time to time to royal suggestions.
Lord Salisbury is recovering from his recent ill-
ness, and is likely to make an important speech
when the House meets in a couple of weeks. He

186

DECEMBER, 1901

is preparing it now. Anyone who believes that
all his fine speeches are impromptu makes a mis-
take. He is most meticulous in preparation. His
speeches are often drafted beforehand and the
impromptus are not omitted. One afternoon
when he was entering the House of Lords he in-
advertently dropped his notes. A friend picked
them up a few minutes later, and glancing at them
found that they began thus :

"My lords, when I entered this House this
afternoon, nothing was further from my thoughts
than to address your lordships."

The fire brigade came dashing down the Strand
at Wellington Street to-day with the usual wild
cries of " Hi ! yi ! hi ! yi !" which always creates a
sensation in the streets. One of the engine horses
came down on the slippery pavement, but the men
had the team going in an incredibly short time.
The suggestion so often made that the firemen
should abandon their wild and alarming cries and
substitute a gong is bitterly opposed by the fire-
men. They have always yelled " Hi ! yi !" and
they always will do so.

Watts Dunton, the " shadow " of Algernon
Swinburne, came along with a new essay which
he thinks should stir the world. I could not make
out whether he or Swinburne wrote it, and
possibly it is a piece of joint authorship ; some-
thing akin to a companion piece of Rosamund
Queen of the Lombards. They hold a sort of
weekly Poet's Court down at " The Pines " in

187

R.D.B.'s DIARY

Putney, with Swinburne on. a dais usually sur-
rounded by a lot of admiring dames of the Swin-
burne cult, draped in Liberty clothes and all in
rapture-like attention while the great man pours
forth words of Putney wisdom.

December 30, 1901.

Romano, of the restaurant, in discussing with
me the menus of French, Italian, and English
restaurants, said that personally he preferred an
English chop to the best culinary creation imagin-
able. He was reluctant in admitting the genius
of Joseph, the great French chef, who died yester-
day in Paris. Joseph was born in Birmingham,
and he knew his way equally with beef and
ortolans. But in order to maintain his position
he had to be Monsieur Joseph. If he had been
plain Mr. Joseph, Romano, for one, is sure that
Mr. Vanderbilt would not have taken him to New
York to act as his chef for the unheard-of salary
of 2,000 a year. Romano was bemoaning the
decline of the picturesque clientele which this
establishment used to boast. No more Duke
of Manchester, the famous " Kim " ; gone is the
Marquis of Ailesbury, who dressed and talked
like a coster; ditto the sprightly " Dolly " Tester,
of the halls, and only the memory of the large
sums spent on festival occasions recalls the golden
days and nights of Mr. Abington Baird, the
millionaire who had so much money that his

188

DECEMBER,

purse seemed to be inexhaustible. Only the
Knights of the Round Table who write the Pink
'Un seem to be left over from that remarkable
gathering of eight or ten years ago.

I have been asked by Mr. Martin Knockolds,
of Saffron Walden, to go down to Newmarket
next Saturday to shoot hares, and I have been
impelled to decline. I went last year, and it was
too much for me. There must have been thirty
guns, mostly neighbouring farmers, and literally
hundreds of hares were driven down the wide
fields and shot. I have never seen anything like it
in the form of wholesale slaughter, and do not
want to again. It takes a large number of beaters
to do the work, and as they cost 2s. 6d. a day the
expense of such a shoot is considerable.*

Someone tells me that Mr. Ritchie, who is still
Home Secretary, and does not like it, is likely to
be "translated" to the Upper House. For a
business man who has never been a real politician
he seems to have done quite well for himself, since
all the best posts are generally reserved for men
of family.

The Turkish Ambassador has had his State
carriage redecorated. It is a most gorgeous affair,
all yellow and gold and shining metal, almost
equal in splendour to the State coach in which the
Austrian Ambassador takes the air on ceremonial
occasion. I saw the carriage come out of
Bryanston Square, where the Embassy is housed,

* The cost of beaters in 1930 is ys, 6d. a day.
189

R.D.B/S DIARY

and it was a most striking affair, to which the
Pasha inside added picturesque effect. The
Ambassadors are beginning to vie with the great
duchesses in their State turnouts.

December 31, 1901.

The wise men of the War Office have decided
that the whole Army is to be decorated with the
ridiculous Brodrick cap, in which the Guards
have been made to look so silly for the past year.
Lord Roberts is said to be responsible. Mr.
Brodrick [Earl of Midleton, then War Secretary]
repudiates all responsibility, although the country
has fastened him with the name. It is certain that
the Brodrick cap has retarded recruiting just as
it is sure that whenever the red coat is discarded
for something less showy the recruits will hold
back. A Guards officer told me the other day
that the unpopularity of the Brodrick may be
gauged by the drop in the rate which nursemaids
have hitherto paid the well-turned-out privates
for an afternoon's walking-out. The pill box and
the monkey jacket of the Household Cavalry still
fetch half a crown an afternoon with beer, but the
Foot Guards' Brodrick marks a distinct bear
movement down to is. 6d. a day.

It is not often that one sees three British field-
marshals walking side by side. Just outside
Marlborough House to-day I met the Duke of
Cambridge, Lord Roberts, and Prince Edward of

190

DECEMBER, igoi

Saxe-Weimar. Prince Edward looks rather aged
now, but he is still active, and has lately been
doing much entertaining at his house in Portland
Place. They say he has been a most efficient
soldier, but that does not mitigate his guilt in
being the first man to breed the Dachshund in
England.

Rider Haggard dined with me to-night, and we
discussed the affairs of the world during the past
year. He is, of course, full of his " Back to the
Land " ideas, and visualises England in the next
generation as a happy, contented nation of small
agriculturists on the Danish system. He is full
of hopes on this subject. All he wants is a con-
certed governmental onward movement, which,
he fears, is retarded by the great landed interests.
For the rest we talked of the year which will be
dead in a few hours as having made great history.
Queen Victoria's death alone will ever mark 1901
in the story of the nation. With her departed,
perhaps, the most glorious era of English history.
The end of the Boer War, which was so con-
fidently assumed with the fall of Pretoria, is not
yet, and De Wet keeps a great army always on
the alert. Lord Kitchener does not expect it to
be over for many months. Trade has been only
fair. We are on the eve of great electrification
movements. The automobile has come to stay,
and there are even some people who predict that
in another generation our traffic will be horseless,
and that the horse will disappear like the great

191

R.D.B.'s DIARY

auk. Women are coming more and more in
competition with men in business, and even well-
to-do girls are devoting themselves to callings
other than nursing. As I write the crowds are
passing down Fleet Street towards St. PauPs for
the usual Hogmanay jubilation at midnight.
There are hundreds of Scotsmen on Ludgate Hill,
all singing " Auld Lang Syne " in various dialects
that suggest any place between Wick and
Walthamstow.

Saturday, January 18, 1902.

I came down by train from Harrow this morn-
ing with Sir Ernest Cassel, who has a house at
Stanmore. He is enormously rich, and was, I
believe, the son of a Frankfort banker, and he
made a great fortune in Egypt. He is a British
subject now, very taciturn, but kindly, though he
appears to be stern. From some remarks he made
I became convinced that he was the anonymous
donor of the 200,000 gift to the King, which
His Majesty determines to devote to the building
of sanatoria for consumptive patients. The
anonymity was rather puzzling to the newspapers
when it was announced, and I think it was only
by accident that I found it out. I taxed Sir
Ernest with it, and his denial was most blunder-
ing, and not at all assuring. He has a great idea
to establish a vast clinic for the study of tuber-
culosis. He spoke of it as if he had a vision, and

192

JANUARY, JUNE, 1902

his face lighted up in the most wonderful way.
He is also greatly interested in the discovery of
a cure for cancer, and as he is fabulously rich he
will probably very soon be handing over money
for this purpose.

Sir Ernest told me that he had just received
word that Cecil Rhodes is ill in South Africa, and
that he is not likely to live.

Rhodes has chosen a place in the hills, some-
where in Rhodesia, where he intends to be buried.
Dr. " Jim " told me some time ago of this curious
whim.*

Cassel also showed me a letter from Lord
Kitchener, in which he stated that the Boers are
now beginning to surrender, and are giving up
arms willingly and asking for peace. It looks now
as if the war in South Africa is at last actually
over.

Tuesday, June 24, 1902.

I was brought out of bed early this morning,
and informed that King Edward was dying after
an operation. I went straight to Buckingham
Palace, and there met Arthur Pearson and Alfred
Harmsworth, who were there ahead of me, waiting
for information, having been bidden to the Palace
for this purpose. The general public at that
moment knew nothing of it. It appears that the

* Rhodes died several months later and was buried in the
Matoppo Hills.

193

R.D.B.'s DIARY

King became suddenly ill last night, and Lord
Lister, Sir Francis Laking, Sir Thomas Smith, Sir
Thomas Barlow, and Sir Frederick Treves were
called in. Sir Frederick Treves performed the
operation for what they call perityphilitis. I have
never heard of it. Harms worth says it is just
plain appendicitis. This means that the corona-
tion festivities will have to be postponed. There
is consternation everywhere, as His Majesty is not
out of danger.

I am told that one man in St. Paul's Church-
yard, who had let out a grand stand for the
public to see the coronation procession, has lost
20,000.*

Tuesday, June 23, ipoj.

Arthur Pearson aroused me from heavy
slumber at 11.30 this morning. (I had been at
the Daily Express office until 2.30.) He was
greatly agitated; had just come from Joseph
Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, who had
sent for him to discuss his new Tariff Reform
proposals. Pearson did not, of course, know that
Mr. H. W. Wilson, of the Daily Mail, with his
brother, Mr. J. B. Wilson, of the Daily Express,
and myself had manoeuvred this interview be-
tween the Colonial Secretary and the hesitant
newspaper proprietor. The interview was

* The coronation was postponed, owing to the King's
illness, and took place on August 9.

194

JUNE, 1903

arranged through another Wilson, who was
Joe's secretary.

Mr. Chamberlain has not until now been able
to secure the support of a single London daily,
and we, who are ardent Tariff Reformers, felt that
it was time to see to the support of his plans,
particularly since Alfred Harmsworth thunders
away about " stomach taxes." We knew that if
Joe once succeeded in talking to Pearson we
would win. Pearson said to me :

"Get up. We are going to do big things.
You chaps have had your way, and I have
promised Mr. Chamberlain the support of the
Daily Express."

So I got up, and after hurried preparations for
the day went to the Daily Express offices to help
in the preparation of a pronouncement to the
effect that the paper would in future advocate Mr.
Chamberlain's policy.

Later I went to the Colonial Office and saw Mr.
Chamberlain, who told me that he had arranged
to have a meeting of Unionist members of Parlia-
ment. The leaders of this meeting are Mr.
Edward Goulding (now Lord Wargrave), Sir
Alexander Henderson (now Lord Faringdon),
Arthur Griffiths Boscawen (now Sir Arthur) , Mr.
H. E. Duke (now Lord Merivale), Mr. Arthur
Lee (now Lord Lee of Fareham), the Hon. M.
White Ridley (late Viscount Ridley) . Sir Herbert
Maxwell is to be in the chair.

I am convinced that we are entering on a hectic

R.D.B.'s DIARY

era of political controversy, but I think that very
soon now, owing to the state of the country, Tariff
Reform must prevail.*

After all this excitement, I decided it would
be opportune to take an evening off and get
some mental recreation, so I went to see Ellen
Terry in Much Ado About Nothing at the
Imperial Theatre in Westminster. She is begin-
ning to forget her lines, but glosses it over with
great charm by talking to the audience about it,
and they sympathise with her. Then she goes on,
having caught up the gap.

Wednesday, March 24., 1904.

Spent an hour in the House of Commons to
hear speaker after speaker expend energy on
denunciation of the plan to carry London County
Council trams across Westminster Bridge and
along the Embankment. There has for some time
been a determined policy on the part of the
London County Council to push its public-
owned tram system in every direction in spite of
the fact that, firstly, trams are immobile and
therefore obstructive. More so now, since it is be-
coming increasingly apparent that swift-moving

* The outcome of the meeting was the foundation of
the Tariff Reform League, with Mr. Pearson as chairman
of the executive. It was on this occasion that Mr. Cham-
berlain referred to Mr. Pearson as the "greatest hustler
on record."

196

MARCH, NOVEMBER, 1904

motor traffic must be the transportation method
of the future. Secondly, corporation owned
trams like most other publicly owned pro-
perties do not pay. But the main opposition to
the scheme was the threat to ruin the Embank-
ment by laying down rails and making half of the
road useless for general traffic. The opposition in
the House of Commons was of such a nature that
it now seems improbable that the trams from
Blackfriars Road will ever be able to go across
Westminster Bridge via the Embankment.*
I had a good look at King Edward yesterday
when he drove up to open the new wing of the
Law Society's building in Chancery Lane. He
was in morning dress ; wore a black overcoat and
black gloves. I thought he looked old and tired ;
and there is not much to wonder at in that, for he
has been kept on the go every day for weeks.
Royalty does not lay itself open to the charge of
laissez faire. I take it the black gloves were worn
in mourning for the old Duke of Cambridge, who
was buried yesterday.

Thursday, November 3.

Arthur Pearson came into my room this after-
noon and said that he had purchased the Standard
and Evening Standard from the Johnstone family
for 700,000. Pearson is heavily backed by men
of wealth. The Standard, which up to three years

* Trams be^^n to run on the Embankment in 1906.
197

R.D.B:* DIARY

ago, was one of the most prosperous papers in the
world, has lost readers and support owing to its
policy of Free Trade. I went with Pearson over
the establishment in Shoe Lane to-night and
found it archaic and ill-equipped for the produc-
tion of a first-class newspaper. There are men
there who have drawn salaries for years without
doing an adequate day's work.

Tuesday, July 4, 1905.

I went to the Independence Day banquet
of the American Society to hear the new U.S.
Ambassador make his maiden speech in London.
Mr. Whitelaw Reid will have to do a great deal of
practising if he desires ever to match his predeces-
sor, Mr. J. H. Choate, who has just returned to
America. I thought his speech exceedingly dull,
which is strange, because Mr. Reid as editor of
the New York Tribune was never dull and never
appeared to want for the right word. But editors
are, as a rule, indifferent speakers. I did not think
such a lot either of Lord Lansdowne's speech.
The Foreign Secretary was in a happy enough
mood, but he is one of those cold-blooded, never-
warming statesmen whose precise pronunciation,
even in a humorous strain, gives out the sugges-
tion of melancholy. After dinner I talked with
Lord Lansdowne about the report that Mr. Reid
had taken Lansdowne House in Berkeley Square
for his London residence, but his lordship denied

198

JULY, 1905

that. He said he had heard that the Ambassador
was taking Dorchester House in Park Lane, the
place where the Shah's son lived so gloriously
about ten years ago. The house has not been
permanently occupied for years since Captain
Holford's father died. As for Lansdowne House,
Lord Lansdowne said he could not understand
how such a rumour got about.

" Of course," he added, " I shall never let the
house outside our family. We require it our-
selves." *

On my way home I stepped into the United
Services Club (the senior) in Pall Mall, to see
Frank Wright, and at that late hour ran into
Lord Roberts, who had been lecturing somewhere
to-night to officers on Imperial Defence. The old
hero is all alive with his subject. "We have
learned nothing from the Boer War," he said.
" Mark my word, if we do not prepare properly
for war we shall be crushed at any moment."

It was fairly late after leaving the club, so I
walked across the street and went up to see
Beerbohm Tree in the "tower" of his theatre.
He was having supper with a small party.
General Brabazon, whose evening clothes are
the most splendid in existence, Claude Lowther,
who outshines the sartorial general, and " Sandy "
Dingwall, of New York. Tree says that the

* Lansdowne House was occupied by Mr. Selfridge for
about five years. It is about to become a club. Dorchester
House has already disappeared.

199

RJ).B.'s DIARY

theatre will go under if the Kinematograph plays
are improved, as they threaten to be.

Tuesday, October 23, 1906.

Witnessed a strange scene in the House of
Commons this afternoon. About four o'clock
there was a rush of women into the outer lobby.
They attempted to hold a meeting, and for more
than a quarter of an hour there was a desperate
fight between the police and the women, who were
led by little Mrs. Pankhurst, Miss Annie Kenney,
and Miss Billington. These are the same women
who created a scene some months ago.

Eventually they were cleared from the House
of Commons, after reinforcements of police had
been brought up. There was a good deal of rough
treatment and considerable horse-play, but the
frail women could not resist the stronger police-
men. Nevertheless, a good many police were
scratched and torn.

Ten of the viragos were taken to the police
station, and were charged with rioting in the
House of Commons. I suppose to-day they will
be taken to prison, where they will, of course,
threaten to go on hunger strike.

Why they should go on in this fashion remains
a mystery, because they know that the House of
Commons will not give women votes if it can
help it.

Mr. Burns, of the Cunard Line, showed me to-

200

By courtesy of The Grufriii

Suffragettes at the Albert Hall: Miss Or, STON, armed with

a dog whip, being violently ejected from a meeting addressed

by MR. LLOYD GhORGJ-,

OCTOBER, 1906. JANUARY, 1907

day some photographs of the decorations in the
new liner Lusitania, which was recently launched.
She is the largest ship afloat, and it will take the
Germans many years to overtake her. The luxury
in this ship is indescribable. Suites of rooms as
munificent as they are in first-class hotels. She
will carry a crew of a thousand men.*

Monday, January 14, 1907.

Just home from the Hotel Cecil where there
was a banquet to W. S. Gilbert, the librettist, to
celebrate the revival of Gilbert and Sullivan
operas at the Savoy. Gilbert made a speech
which was quite felicitous, and he was generous to
his partner, Sullivan, in saying that but for Sulli-
van his own name would by now have been for-
gotten. I sat next to Charles Santley, whose
jubilee as a singer is to be celebrated in a month
or so at the Albert Hall. From what I hear he is
to be knighted on that occasion. To listen to
Gilbert no one would ever suspect him to be the
possessor of a wit that is irresistible. He looks,
talks, and acts like a dyspeptic, which I believe
he is. Anyhow, people who come in contact with
him on short acquaintance, say he is exceedingly
irascible. I cannot maintain that myself, for on
two or three occasions when I have met him he
has been quite affable and not in the least acid.

* The Lusltania was torpedoed in the Irish Channel by
a submarine in 1915, with appalling loss of life.

20 1

RJ).B.'s DIARY

I bought enough cloth to-day from W. Bill, in
Great Portland Street, to fit me out for years, and
shall now have to extend the experiment by find-
ing a tailor to turn the stuff into clothes. I pur-
chased ten yards of Irish frieze at 35. a yard. It
will make a good suit and an ulster. Also six
yards of " Saxony " tweeds at 8s. a yard, very
solid, and half a dozen Irish hand-knitted socks
at is. 6d. a pair, and some shooting stockings at
35. gd. per pair; which I consider considerably
cheaper than in most places.

I talked with Mr. E. H. Holden, M.P., this
afternoon. He is Managing Director of the
London City and Midland Bank down in Thread-
needle Street. He made my head swim with
figures. Their capital is over 3,000,000, their
reserve fund likewise, and the deposits are
51,000,000. They have 450 branches.

" Of course," said Mr. Holden, " that is nothing
compared to some of the other banks, such as the
National Provincial, which has a paid-up capital
of 15,0x50,000, and the Metropolitan, which has
7,500,000, or Parr's Bank with 8,000,000."
Then he surprised me by saying that the Union
of London and Smith's Bank has 22,000,000
subscribed capital.*

* The issued capital of the Midland Bank to-day is
40,689,218, and the paid-up capital 13,432,958, author-
ised 45,200,000. The authorised capital of Lloyd's Bank
is 74,000,000.

202

FEBRUARY, 1908

February /, 1908.

The great sensation of the day is the dismissal
of Sir Arthur Vicars from the post of Ulster King
of Arms. The Commission of Inquiry into the
theft of the jewels of the Order of St. Patrick from
Dublin Castle last July charge Sir Arthur with
want of proper care in the custody of the strong-
room keys. There will, of course, be a dead set
against poor Mr. Birrell, the Secretary for
Ireland. He is beset on all sides. Captain Craig
[now Lord Craigavon], who is an Ulster M.P.,
tells me to-night that he will ask Mr. Birrell in
the House on Tuesday in whose keeping the
jewels were during the time they were mislaid.
There is something most mysterious about the
loss of these jewels, and, of course, the circum-
stantial rumours about highly-placed people that
have been going about are as thrilling as any in-
cident in a shilling shocker. I think this Crown
Jewel mystery will go down in history as a
romance of the Edwardian era.

I called on the " Pink-Un " in the Unionist
Chief Whip's office [Sir Alexander Acland-Hood,
afterwards Lord St. Audries]. He was very red
in the face, redder than usual, because of the
charges of corruption among Worcester electors
which have unseated Mr. George Henry William-
son. The Pink-Un was vehement in his remarks,
and said that only a few voters had been guilty
of corruption and the innocent electors were

203

R.D.B.'s DIARY

suffering disfranchisement through them. " We
are becoming a nation of priggish noodles/' said
the irate colonel. " If a candidate or his agent
just smile on a baby nowadays he is looked upon
as a criminal. Give me the good old days of a
hundred years ago."

I hear there has been a fearful row among the
young women of Swan and Edgar's staff because
the firm had decided on abolishing the living-in
system, and that in future their women employees
should live at home or in lodgings. There has
been something like a strike against this new-
fangled innovation.

Mrs. Pankhurst's violent suffragists continue
to make themselves objectionable. The four
women who invaded Mr. Asquith's premises in
Cavendish Square with the double object of
" securing a vote and punishing base ingrati-
tude," were sentenced to prison yesterday by Mr.
Plowden. Another lot of three were sent up for
six weeks by Mr. Curtis Bennett [father of Sir
Henry Curtis Bennett]. It is generally believed
that Mrs. Pankhurst's objectionable tactics will
lead to nothing, and that the women will never
get the vote by such methods.

Sir John Fisher, the admiral [the late Lord
Fisher of Kilverstone], asked me to lunch to-day
to meet Admiral von Eiserdecker, Vice-Admiral
von Miiller, and Rear-Admiral von Giilich, of
the Imperial German Navy. In a covering note
Sir John said : " Come and meet these chaps and

204

FEBRUARY, 1908

see the sort of men we'll have to whip some day."
And then, characteristically, he added: "Burn
this."

February 2, 1908.

I met Rudyard Kipling with his cousin, Stanley
Baldwin, the young ironmaster from the West
Country, who hopes one day to get into Parlia-
ment like his father before him. He stood for
Kidderminster a couple of years ago as a Unionist
against Banard, the sitting member. He is rather
shy and not at all politician-like in his manner,
and I do not suppose he will ever do more than
follow his leaders if he ever gets in. But I should
call him a pleasant, cultured, conscientious, but
badly dressed man, without much desire to sit in
the limelight ; also, he has a sense of humour, and
when he smiles it lights up a face that is rugged
and interesting.

Lord Claud Hamilton, the chairman of the
Great Eastern Railway, whom I met in the Park
to-day, is most pessimistic about the future of the
railways in this country. He attributes much of
the falling off of revenue to the growing competi-
tion of tramways and motor vehicles. The
suburban traffic of his line, for instance, has
dropped by 36,000 and the passenger reduction
by over 4,000,000. The time will come, he thinks,
when most people will go to and from their work
by motors or trams, though I cannot see how

205

R.D.B.'s DIARY

this can be done in view of the narrow and con-
gested roads, which were not built for motor
traffic. Judging by the constant motor break-
downs I should say that Lord Claud is unduly
pessimistic.

A few yards on I met Fred Kottman, an old
friend, who has become a successful house agent.
He was once a bareback rider in a circus, and
afterwards painted the waxworks at Madame
Tussaud's. At one time, too, he was associated
with the so-called Marquis de Leuville, with
whom he shared the reputation of being able to
write love lyrics with great rapidity, usually on
his shirt cuffs. Kottman say he has just dis-
posed of a number of houses in Bow, lease thirty-
five years, price 275, with ground rent half a
crown per annum. Several in Putney with eighty
years to run, in what he calls " a select neighbour-
hood," price 315 and ground rent of 6. He
does not think that flats will ever replace houses,
particularly now, when communication is becom-
ing so much more efficient.

The new meter for sixpenny hansoms has come
into use. I am informed that several hundred
hansoms have been fitted with them. I took one
at Hyde Park Corner and drove to Charing
Cross. Gave the driver a penny for his tip, and
to my surprise he said, " Thank you, sir !" the
usual formula, as we all know it, being, " Can you
spare it, sir?" I imagine the sixpenny cab, which
has already been nicknamed " tannercab," will be

206

FEBRUARY, 1908

a great success, and that the horse vehicle may
now be assured a permanency.

February 4, 1908.

The assassination of the King and Crown
Prince of Portugal on Saturday has created a
great sensation here. The Court goes into a
month's mourning, and the first Court of the
season has been postponed. King Carlos was a
favourite in London. I have often seen him walk-
ing unattended in Bond Street and Piccadilly.
He firmly refused the attentions of Scotland
Yard, always believing himself to be as safe in
London as any ordinary person. The Portuguese
charge d'affaires here says that Senhor Franco,
the Dictator-Premier, with the young King
Manuel and the Queen Mother would succeed in
squashing any republican tendencies that might
be manifested. Later in the afternoon I saw
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Prime
Minister, and Lord Tweedmouth on their way
to Buckingham Palace, where the King received
them. The Prince of Wales [now King George
V] joined them there.

The slump in water colours is shown by the
prices which collectors are now paying. There
was a sale to-day at Christie's and a number of
the late Edwin Long's famous works went at
ridiculous prices. Fifteen pictures fetched
1001. Twenty-five years ago one of them,

207

R.D.B.'s DIARY

" The Babylonian Marriage Market," was sold
for 6,300 guineas, and "The Suppliant" for
4,100 guineas. The highest price at to-day's sale
was 420 guineas for an enormous canvas depict-
ing the finding of Moses in the bulrushes. I pre-
dict that fifty years hence all of these first-class
Victorian water colour paintings will be fetching
enormous prices.

Some months ago, in Paris, M. Gastinne-
Renette, the French gun-maker, gave me a little
target, which was a carton shot by King Carlos
recently while in Paris. It proves him to have been
equal to his great reputation as a revolver shot.
The carton here reproduced was made with a
revolver by the King at a distance
of twenty-seven yards. He fired
twelve shots in fifteen seconds.

Lord Justice Vaughan Wil-
liams has taken to a motor-car !
He has discarded his old
brougham; which means a great deal for the
march of progress.

I met Mrs. Compton Keats to-day. She has
made a success of a novel profession. She teaches
housewives how to keep lamps sweet and clean
and how to prevent lamp chimneys from smoking.

February 6, 1908.

Encountered the Marquis de Soveral (" The
Blue Monkey") straight from Lisbon, charged

208

FEBRUARY, 1908

with a personal message from the widowed Queen
of Portugal to King Edward VIII. M. de Soveral
was in Lisbon when the King and Crown Prince
were killed last week. He says there is not the
slightest chance of a successful republican up-
heaval, and is full of praise of young King
Manuel's natural abilities. He is in deep mourn-
ing, having for once discarded his immaculate
spats and white gloves.

I remember some twelve years ago meeting Mr.
Bernhard Baron, just after he had come to
London to dispose of a cigarette-making machine
of his own invention. Later he acquired an
interest in the Carreras tobacconist shop which
had received much publicity through J. M.
Barriers My Lady Nicotine. Baron has pushed
this business vigorously in the past four or five
years. I saw him again to-day after he had
declared an interim dividend at the rate of 5 per
cent per annum. The shares stand at about i6s.,
and Payton, of Tobacco, tells me they are good
for a much higher figure.*

Some of the County Council members are
thinking of making war on the growing habit of
showing electric signs at night. There are three
or four on the Embankment which cry out in the
night, and here and there in the Strand they dis-
figure the darkness; so that they will probably
be prohibited, and London will be spared the

* In 1930 the Carreras A Ordinary shares are quoted at
over 9, and Mr. Baron died last year a multi-millionaire.

209

R.D.B.'s DIARY

freak advertisements which have made New York
so amazingly hideous.

I was complaining to-day to Frank Munsey,
the great American publisher, about the dearness
of prices here as compared with ten years ago. He
laughingly picked up a copy of the Daily Express
and began to read from the small advertisements :
" A dainty hamper of fish direct from Grimsby,
six pounds, 2s.; Russian furs, rich dark sable,
brown, seven feet long, duchess stole, deep shaped
collar, handsomely trimmed tails and large
granny muff to match, satin lined, I2s. 6d.;
enormous fatted fowls direct from farm at Attle-
boro', ss. a couple; gentleman must sell his
beautiful drawing-room suite, 655. ; beautiful and
durable silk umbrellas, 2s. 6d.," and so on.
" There's your refutation," said Munsey. " Eng-
land is the cheapest and the easiest and the freest
country in the world."

Mrs. Langtry's theatre, the Imperial, which
was built for her on the site of the old Aquarium
in Westminster [now the Wesleyan Central Hall]
does not seem to be wanted by anyone. It cost
a great deal of money, and it was withdrawn from
auction to-day at 85,000. I understand that
"Imperial" Perks [Sir Robert Perks, M.P.],
who is the leader of the Wesleyans, wants the site
for a great Wesleyan Cathedral, which will put in
the shade Westminster Abbey across the way.

210

FEBRUARY, iQo8

February 7,

I had lunch to-day at Stafford House, the Duke
of Sutherland's palace in St. James* [now the
London Museum], with the Right Hon. Henry
Chaplin, M.P. [the late Viscount Chaplin]. The
old gentleman, who has a suite of rooms in the
house of his ducal brother-in-law, wanted to talk
about a tax on foreign bacon, eggs, and cheese,
but all during lunch he discoursed on the Cesare-
witch, the Lincoln, and the Grand National, with
here and there an anecdote about some splendid
run with the Quorn or the Pytchley. He said he
was not feeling very well ; completely off his appe-
tite. As he said this he had his second helping
of a heaped-up plate of roast goose, after a plenti-
ful dish of fried sole. After the goose there was
just a soup f on of cold tongue and ham, and then
came a beautifully done souffle. Cheese, of course.
Nor was it a teetotal meal. There was some
brown sherry, some exquisite Burgundy, and a
few rounds of port, with brandy to seal the per-
fection of the repast. " You see," said the Squire,
" one can't eat very much in town. I never really
have an appetite until I've come in from a day's
hunting."

In the Lobby of the House of Commons this
evening they were discussing a speech just made
by Mr. Bottomley, who made the novel sugges-
tion that all racing bets should be taxed. Mr.
Asquith warded him off by saying that the sub-

211

R.D.B.'s DIARY

ject involves a far-reaching question which he
" cannot discuss within the limits of a Parliamen-
tary answer." The State can hardly undertake to
tax transactions which are considered by law to
be illegal.

Beerbohm Tree told me to-day that he experi-
enced a sudden loss of memory at His Majesty's
last night in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. He
was standing in the middle of the stage and had
started a long speech. " Instead of my own part,"
he said, " I was thinking of Locke's ' Beloved
Vagabond/ which we are producing this week,
and unconsciously I began to speak a line which
belonged to that play. I just caught myself in
time, and hitched on to Edwin Drood again with-
out appearing to have upset the meaning. That's
art, my boy,"

Melville Stone, the veteran of the Associated
Press of America, asked me to-day to make a note
of the fact that if wireless communication ever
becomes commercially successful, which he
doubts owing to the absence of secrecy, it will
have a distinctive name such as Teleography or
Etherography. He is a great visionary. " I can
foresee the time," he said with glowing eyes,
" when people far apart will carry on conversation
without the use of wires ; even as far off as Paris
or Brussels. Of course, that is a long way off;
but it is among the possibilities."

I went into the just-opened Waldorf Hotel in
the new Kingsway. It marks a wonderful step

212

FEBRUARY, 1908

forward. The? dining-room is 300 feet long and
there is the largest palm room in the world. No
doubt the Americans will flock to it this summer.
This hotel is certainly up to the times, for in the
palm room I saw three women calmly smoking
cigarettes and drinking cocktails, without men to
accompany them. Some of Mrs. Pankhurst's
legionaries, I presume.

February 8, 1908.

I am told that Brighton is regaining its place
as the most fashionable resort in England. I met
Admiral Lord Charles Beresford to-day after his
return from Brighton, where he has been taking
the air. He says the King and Queen Alexandra
are going there next week. We talked about the
Navy, and he was not particularly complimentary
about Sir John Fisher, his old rival. Indeed,
according to Lord Charles, the Navy is being
reduced to scrap. " If we ever have a war,"
he said, "we'll be driven into harbour even
by the Portuguese, because we are discarding
all our best fighting material." And so
on.

Had a narrow escape from being knocked down
in Whitehall this afternoon by Miss Meresia
Nevill, the daughter of Lady Dorothy. She drives
about rather swiftly in her high cart. The vehicle
is rubber tyred, and so you can hardly hear it
coming round corners. I think now that there is

213

R>.B.'s DIARY

more danger from horse-drawn carriages than
from motor-cars.

I went last night to Harlow, in Essex, to " dine
and sleep/' at the house of Field-Marshal Sir
Evelyn Wood. A goodly party present. After
dinner the F.M. kept me back and began to tell
me some of his experiences in Ashanti, in Egypt,
and in the Transvaal ; when he had Paul Kruger
in the hollow of his hand and was prevented from
crushing the Boers by a telegram from Mr. Glad-
stone. He is very diffuse and very deaf, but
always comes back to the point. I never uttered
a word. Useless, too, for he would not have heard
me; so I sat silently and listened with interest
to one of the most remarkable soldiers of our
time. Finally Sir Evelyn looked up and cried,
" Gracious me ! It is twelve o'clock. I had no
idea we had been talking so long." Then he put
his hand on my shoulder and said : " You know I
like you because you are so interesting."

After a fitful existence of two years the Tribune,
the great hope of the Liberal Party, has suspended
publication, and must now be numbered as one of
the outstanding journalistic failures of our time.
Mr. Franklin Thomasson, M.P., the young
millionaire from the north, has lost 400,000 in
the venture. It was quite a good paper, and it
had an excellent and enthusiastic staff of young
Liberals ; but it was too political and too didactic
to prevent the steady and disheartening drain of
money week by week.

214

FEBRUARY, 1908

I have from Charles Garvice his secret of suc-
cess in the making of a popular novel designed
to cause every cook and housemaid in Europe and
America to weep copiously. He says : " First take
a wicked Earl ; then an innocent village maiden ;
next some irate parents, a background of soldiers
and sailors, a family solicitor and an elopement
scene; a church door; snow falling, detectives,
and finally Villainy defeated and Virtue trium-
phant. There's a firm in New York who would
take one of these novels a week if I could furnish
it. But, alas ! I can only do about six a year !"
Garvice has the widest circulation of any story-
teller in the United States, and though he is an
Englishman he has only recently gained a footing
here.

February p, ipo8

First night of A Woman of Kronstadt at
the Garrick last night. I have never known such
enthusiasm ; not so much for the play, but for the
costumes. The women in the audience were
fairly overcome. I asked Miss Gladys Unger,
who sat next to me, to describe to me Miss
Latimer's costume in the first act. Miss Unger
was so excited over it that I could not follow her
description, and so she said she would put it on
paper and let me have it to-day. It is so mysteri-
ous to me that I put it down for future reference.
Here it is : " Gown of warm red face cloth draped
in latest Princess style. Corsage bordered with

R.D.B.'s DIARY

elaborate trimming of heavy chenille embroidery,
opening over a vest of ecru tucked net. The
rucked sleeves are made of net to match. With
the gown Miss Latimer wore a magnificent coat
of red chiffon velvet with large sable cuffs and
collar, and lined with fur. She also wore a sable
toque and an enormous sable muff."

Mostyn Piggott, who was with me at the
Garrick, got into a little difficulty with the escort
of a lady in front of us. She was in evening dress,
but wore a large picture hat, and appeared to be
disinclined to remove it ; so that at first Mostyn
could not see the stage. He leaned over and asked
her to remove the hat, which she did only after
considerable demur and some rather exaggerated
exchange of compliments. The escort then took
a hand, and, turning round, said: " You are very
impolite, sir!" Mostyn answered sweetly: "You
are, of course, a nice little gentleman." The lady
said : " Shut up, 'Enry," and we had peace.

At Oddenino's, after the play, I saw Henniker-
Heaton, M.P., the great postal reformer, full of
indignation against Mr. Buxton, the Postmaster-
General [Lord Buxton], who refuses point blank
to consider penny postage to the United States.
Henniker-Heaton is convinced that if the 2j^d.
rate were reduced our business with the United
States would be largely increased.

Bonar Law, M.P., the Glasgow iron merchant,
who knows all about British trade and never fails
to give a reminder of it to Lloyd George, the Presi-

216

FEBRUARY, 1908

dent of the Board of Trade, told me to-day that in
his opinion we have come to an end of the great
trade boom, which has brought in a good deal of
prosperity in recent years. The imports, prin-
cipally of raw materials, are down by 7 per cent.,
and the exports are down by 2 per cent. The
figures are:

IMPORTS

Jan., 1907 .. .. 60,534,846
Jan., 1908 .. .. 56,368,358

Decrease . . . . 4,166,488

EXPORTS

Jan., 1907 .. .. 43,863,883
Jan., 1908 . . . . 41,006,976

Decrease .. .. 2,856,907

Bonar Law told me that he had just been up
to see Joe Chamberlain at Prince's Gardens. He
is still very ill, but overjoyed at the great victory
of Mr. Edward Goulding [Lord Wargrave] at
Worcester on Friday. Joe thinks this victory is
an infallible sign of the times, and that it portends
a walk-over for Tariff Reform. Bonar is not so
enthusiastic.

February 10, 1908.

We are becoming somewhat negligent in dress.
Down in the City to-day, where I talked with

217

R.D.B.'s DIARY

the Hon. Claude Hay, M.P., I noticed that he
wore a soft collar, such as golfing men often wear,
and brown boots. Also, he had no gloves. Many
men, more than usual, go about the City in bowler
hats nowadays, which shows the trend of the
times.

On the other hand, as if to accentuate the differ-
ence, I had a call in the afternoon from Major-
General Brabazon, the King's friend, who com-
manded at Pretoria during the late Boer war
" Bwab " was dressed to perfection, a wonder-
fully curved and polished top hat, a four-in-hand
tie, long frock coat, with a lurid silk handkerchief
protruding at least six inches from the pocket, as
is his wont, and most immaculate white gloves.
The gallant old general brushes his moustachios
like the German Kaiser, and thinks the young
men of to-day are " simply tewwible " in their
neglect of sartorial adornment.

Mr. W. T. Stead is resting for a moment from
the effects of newly-launched publications. He
told me to-day that his dearest wish at the
moment is to appear as Oliver Cromwell in the
forthcoming London pageant. " Cromwell/ 7 says
Stead, " was a man after my heart, and I would
even go to the extent of shaving off my beard for
the honour of personating that greatest of
Englishmen." *

Went to see the Sicilian players to-night in
Mafia at the Shaftesbury. All the social rage.

* Mr. Stead was drowned in the Titanic disaster in 1912.
218

FEBRUARY, 1908

I have never run through such a gamut of
emotions. Signor Grasso and Signer Aguglia
cycloned, stormed, hissed, wailed, wept, laughed,
shouted, and stilettoed for two and a half hours,
and the rest of the company aided and abetted
with voice, hands, teeth, and feet. A whirling
vortex of excitement. Everyone, audience as well
as players, went home thoroughly exhausted.

Further political talk is about Mr. Willett's
perennial and never-succeeding Daylight Saving
proposal, which is to come up again as a hardy
annual this week. The agricultural M.P.'s say that
even if it is passed it will not succeed, because
the farmers will not go against nature.

Lord Carrington [Marquis of Lincolnshire] has
put his foot in it politically by declaring that
labourers and chainmen employed on London's
ordnance survey are sufficiently well paid at i8s.
a week. A man thus employed came into see me
this afternoon to protest. He said it was not pos-
sible to make ends meet under i 2s. a week,
considering that rooms are hard to get and rents
are going up by shillings. " And I'm not extrava-
gant/' he said, " I assure you."

February il, 1908.

This is the era of young men. I was told in
the House the other day that young Mr. F. E.
Smith, M.P. [Earl of Birkenhead] was soon to be
made a K.C. I did not believe it, because he has

219

R.D.B.'s DIARY

only been at the Bar nine years. Yet here to-
night I see that he is in the new list of K.C.'s.
Other new King's counsel are Mr. John Simon,
M.P., Mr. Hemmerde, M.P., Mr. Bailhache, and
Mr. Frank Russell, the latter a son of the late
Lord Chief Justice. I have been watching the
careers of the three first named. They ran neck-
and-neck, and one wonders which of them will
be Lord Chancellor first. They have all been
going ahead very fast, but I am not so sure that
taking silk will not prove somewhat of a stumb-
ling block.*

I shall not be able in future in the spring and
summer months to go down to the Temple from
Chelsea on board my beloved Thames steamers,
for the County Council has to-day decided either
to scrap the boats or to sell them to the highest
bidder. Thus another bit of the picturesque life
of the Thames goes overboard. The Council has
lost an average of 50,000 a year on them. I
think the fares were too high for popularity, and
there were not enough boats. They ought to have
run at five-minute headway, like omnibuses.

Another little war is brewing, and the soldiers
are all agog about an expedition which is to sally
forth in India, under General Willcocks. They
start from Rawalpindi about 7,000 strong, includ-
ing the Gay Gordons and the pampered loth

* Mr. F. E. Smith became Lord Chancellor j Mr. Simon,
Attorney-General; Mr. Hemmerde, Recorder of Liver-
pool, and Messrs. Bailhache and Russell, Judges.

220

FEBRUARY, 1908

Hussars ; and they go out against some Afridis
called Zakka Khels, who have been border raid-
ing. Mr. John Morley, at the India Office, was
busy to-day giving orders, much against his
peace-loving grain, but the soldiers say it will
provide a fine test of Lord Kitchener's new Army
organisation in India. Anyhow, every soldier
whom I met to-night has been exerting his utmost
to get a staff job in the new enterprise.

A note at the office from Charles Frohman,
asking me to do something for an out-of-work
author who wants to write some articles. Froh-
man spends a lot of time doing things like this.
I have known him since he posted bills for a
travelling show Haverley's Minstrels many
years ago. He says incidentally that Brewster's
Millions, which has had such success at Hicks'
Theatre, in Shaftesbury Avenue, is to come off.
" I thought," he adds, " that it was going to run
for ever."

February 75, 1908.

Lord Marcus Beresford came down from
Wolferton this afternoon and told me all about
Persimmon, the King's famous Derby winner,
who met with a bad accident a few weeks ago.
The horse, he said, had to be put in slings in a
box specially erected for him. Lord Marcus, who
is the King's racing manager, says he does not
think any human being was ever more anxiously

221

R.D.B.'s DIARY

waited on than this most popular of Turf
favourites.

Now that slumming in the East End is no
longer fashionable among ladies of Society, the
new idea is to bring the East End to the West,
so that problems of poverty may be studied in
Mayf air without the attendant inconvenience of
going to Stepney. Mrs. Carl Meyer [the late
Adele Lady Meyer], wife of the financier, has
sent me an invitation to a course of lectures and
poverty demonstrations at her house in Stratton
Street. Mrs. Meyer, who is a most thorough
social reformer, secured women like Mrs. Edwin
Gray, president of the National Union of Women
Workers, Miss Ravenhill, hygiene lecturer of
King's College, Miss MacArthur, Women's Trade
Union League, and Miss Hinton Smith, to lecture
to the marchionesses and countesses on social
problems. Most useful.

The unexpected death of Mr. Alfred Baldwin,
M.P., chairman of the Great Western Railway,
creates a vacancy in the Bewdley Division of
Worcestershire, and the Central Office tell me it
will probably be filled without a contest by Mr.
Baldwin's son, Stanley, whom I met the other
day with his cousin, Rudyard Kipling. The late
M.P. was a brother-in-law of Sir Edward Burne-
Jones, the painter, of Sir Edward Poynter,
president of the Royal Academy, and Mr.
Lockwood Kipling, the artist father of Rudyard
Kipling.

222

FEBRUARY, 1908

The Germans are " mapping out " East Anglia
for future reference. I learned to-night that
several mysterious strangers one of whom I
have met near my own place in north-west Essex
have been bicycling and driving and photo-
graphing all over the county, particularly along
the coast, making sketches and taking notes.
Looks like a staff ride. The War Office has been
told about these activities. Every time a report
is made the spying ceases mysteriously, and then
a week or two later it begins again. There is little
doubt that the German Army is well represented
in East Anglia ; but every time I call attention
to their spy system I am assailed by the Radicals
and called a mischief-maker.

There was a fairly substantial case of spying
several years ago. A German who spent most
of his time bicycling about, lost a note-book, and
it was eventually handed over to the police. The
book contained full details of haystacks and barns
between Dunmow and Clacton. It was sent to
the military authorities, and the undoubted spy
was merely warned to be more careful !

February 16, 1908.

I met Mr. Cody, the aeronaut, at Charing
Cross on my way down. He is engaged, with
Colonel Capper in building a new airship for the
Army. Says it will be larger than the damaged
Nulli Secundus, and that it will attain a speed of

223

RJ).B.'s DIARY

forty miles an hour. We chatted about his be-
ginnings as an aeronaut. He came to England
ten years ago as a Wild West showman; made
himself up to look like " Buffalo Bill " Cody; to
the accompaniment of long hair, sombrero,
lariats, revolvers, mustangs, red Indians, and all.
Then he took to kite flying for amusement, and
became an expert; so that in due course the
British Government picked him up and set him
up as such at Farnborough, with a salary of
1,000 a year. He has cut off his flowing locks,
and now he looks merely like an expert and not a
cowboy.*

I saw Queen Alexandra in the afternoon driv-
ing down the Mall in an open carriage, no doubt
owing to the extraordinarily warm weather. She
is one of the most remarkably well preserved
women I have ever seen. There was the usual
crowd of admiring women at the gates of the
Palace.

There was a meeting in my room at the Daily
Express offices this morning for the purpose of
co-ordinating the opposition to Socialist teach-
ing. The idea is to form a society to be called
the Anti-Socialist Union. Its object is to collect
facts and figures and train public speakers to
counteract the fallacious statements so per-
sistently put about by Socialist writers and
speakers, particularly those who speak in parks
and open spaces. There is no organisation at

* S. F. Cody was killed in an aeroplane accident in 1913.
224

FEBRUARY, 1908

present to take up this important work. Those
present at the meeting were Mr. Claude Lowther,
Mr. Harry Cust, Lord Abinger, Mr. Wilfrid
Ashley, M.P., Captain Jessel [Lord Jessel], Mr.
W. H. Mallock, and myself. Mr. Mallock, who is
the foremost authority on the subject, is to be the
first secretary of the Union, and Mr. F. E. Smith,
K.C., M.P. [Earl of Birkenhead], is to address
the first public meeting at the Caxton Hall.

Mr. A. J. Wilson, who knows all about cycling,
says there is going to be a boom in tricycles this
year. The Humbers, for instance, are making a
tricycle which is only a little heavier than an
ordinary bicycle, and it is expected that elderly
people who do not like either motor-cars or
bicycles, will take to the new tricycle as a means
of obtaining exercise. The roads are full enough
already of all sorts of new-fangled traffic without
this added infliction.

February 17, 1908.

Sam Evans, now metamorphosed into Sir
Samuel, took over his post of Solicitor-General
to-day, much to the envy of other Liberal lawyers
in the House, for the Solicitor earns something
like 15,000 a year. I wrote him a note of con-
gratulation to the House of Commons, and he
answered characteristically: "I would rather
have your job than mine, because my employers
are more exacting. Besides, I may lose it at any

225

RX>.B:S DIARY

moment through no fault of my own."*

Edwin Cleary, the never-faltering impressario,
traveller, actor, contractor, correspondent, and
general favourite, was entertaining a. party of
friends with some of his astonishing experiences
to-day. He is off to America to-morrow in search
of adventure, with half a dozen new patents in
his bag. He proposes to go by way of Glasgow
to New York, since the fare first class is only
12 IDS., whereas one cannot go from London,
Liverpool, or Southampton for much less than
20 first class. t

At Romano's at lunch I met Jimmy Welch, the
actor, who has been ill and out of the cast of
When Knights Were Bold, at Wyndham's.
Welch was contemptuous about kinematograph
shows, which appear to be frightening other
theatrical folk. He does not think they can ever
compete with the legitimate stage, and that in
any case the music-hall has nothing to fear from
moving pictures as a means of a full-programme
entertainment. The music-hall, he says, will
absorb the moving picture, and in the meantime
the variety stage will be improved by the absorp-
tion of legitimate actors. In confirmation, he
pointed to the fact that Constance Collier, so well
known in connection with Beerbohm Tree's pro-

* Sir Samuel became President of the Probate and
Divorce Division in 1910, and died in 1918.

t The minimum fare for first-class ships in 1930 is about
double.

226

FEBRUARY, 1908

ductions, is to go to the Empire next week, and
that Ruth Vincent is leaving the regular stage for
a turn at the Palace.

Coming home along the Embankment at mid-
night, with Arthur Pearson, from Blackfriars as
far as Northumberland Avenue, we counted
fifteen homeless couples, evidently married out-
of-works. Three of them had children with them,
and of these two were barefooted ; which was un-
usual even in this haunt of the unfortunate. The
Salvation. Army people were handing out hot soup
to the miserable folk. This midnight poverty of
London is one of the most pathetic sights of the
metropolis.

More new fashions. Shearn, the florist, in-
forms me that imitation blossoms made of
feathers are now worn for hat trimmings.
Rosettes of Parma violets, of imitation ostrich
feathers, are favourite. He showed me a large
black " crinoline " picture hat, made to order.
Round the crown swept a fine long feather made
of imitation flowers.

Pruger, the manager of the Savoy, says that it
is only in the past ten years that English men and
women have thought of going to hotel restaurants
to dine. When he first came to London only
foreigners went to the hotels for entertainment
and food. The " natives " either entertained their
friends at home or at clubs. As for ladies, there
were only half a dozen places, such as the
Cafe Royal, Scott's, Verrey's, the Amphitron,

227

R.D.B.'s DIARY
Prince's Willis', or Simpson's in the Strand.

Wednesday, January 27, igog

I went to the first night of An Englishman's
Home to-night. A great patriotic play which is
certain to rouse controversy. The author's name
is not given, but I know him to be Captain Guy
du Maurier, son of the author of Trilby and
brother of Gerald du Maurier, the actor. He is
an officer on the active list in the Royal Fusiliers,
and, of course, he cannot permit his name to
appear. The plot of the play is along the lines
of Lord Roberts' preaching against unprepared-
ness.*

In the lobby of the theatre I met Lord Charles
Beresford, who tells me that he will have to retire
from the command of the Channel Fleet next
month. He was not very complimentary about
his rival, Admiral Fisher, who, he says, is doing
everything in his power to wreck the British
Navy.

" Mark my word," said Lord Charles, " if we
ever go to war with Germany, and Fisher remains
as First Sea Lord and has anything to do with the
disposition of the Fleet, we will suffer disaster."

Tuesday, August 25, 1909
Had a visit this evening from Lieutenant

* Colonel du Maurier was killed in France in the Great
Wan

228

AUGUST, 1909

Ernest Shackleton, the explorer, who has just re-
turned from the Antarctic. He is anxious that the
Government or some private person should give
him money enough to go on another expedition,
and thinks that 20,000 would be sufficient.
Shackleton thinks there is much more to be got
out of an expedition of this sort than can be had
from financing, say, these spectacular attempts at
flying the Channel by flying machine. Only
to-day, for instance, Monsieur Paulhan flew
eighty-two miles continuously, which shows that
the flying machine is no longer a toy in the hands
of an expert; but what is the use of expending
large sums of these trans-Channel flights which
always come to grief, except in proper hands?

Thus, last week M. Bleriot flew the Channel in
half an hour thirty-three minutes to be exact.
Mr. H. Latham has tried it twice and failed. The
first time he fell into the sea and was rescued by
following vessels. I agree with Shackleton that
these things represent a foolish waste of money.
Besides, flying across the Channel means nothing
after you have done it. You can't carry goods or
passengers.

Monday, August 29, 1909

Sir George Arthur came in and showed me a
letter which he had just received from Lord
Kitchener. He writes that he has been going
about with Maxwell [Sir John] and Birdwood

229

R.D3.'s DIARY

[the Soul of Anzac] to look for a house. " I must
have somewhere to lay my head." As to employ-
ment, he adds, " I am only a ' Has Been/ and I
am afraid there is nothing for me in England.
Yours ever, K." I wrote a line to Sir Arthur
Bigge [Lord Stamfordham],and started an agita-
tion for K/s employment.*

Then went to the Admiralty to see Sir W.
Grahame Greene, the Permanent Secretary, and
asked him to issue some sort of official statement
about the two British officers, Brandon and
Trench, whom the Germans have locked up as
British spies. One of them is R.N. and the other
a Marine. We refrained from printing their
names last night, but it would be wise for the
Admiralty to tell the public that these men are
not spies. Greene professes never to have heard
of them, and referred me to the Foreign Office.
I said it was no business of mine to clear up their
muddles for them, and went away. But I went
to the F.O. They were very polite, but very
nervous. No one wants to know anything about
the officers.f

I dined this evening at the Travellers' with
Major-General the Hon. Julian Byng, who is my
usual Sunday morning walking companion over

* The King sent for Kitchener to go to see him at
Balmoral, and he was soon after employed.

f The Germans sentenced them to four years' imprison-
ment on flimsy evidence, and they were not released until a
couple of years later.

230

The Evolution of Speed: a sketch made in 1910 on Barnes

Bridge when MR. GRAHAM-WHITE appeared in full flight, for

the first time

AUGUST, 1909. JUNE, 1911

the ploughed fields of Essex, when we discuss
Conscription, Clausewitz, Stonewall Jackson,
Boy Scouts, and Woman's Suffrage. He com-
mands the East Anglian Territorial Division ; one
of the youngest and wisest generals in the Army.
He ought to go a long way.

I have lately been receiving some intensely
abusive letters from a rabid Socialist named
Ervine, who writes me long missives which, if
true, make me out to be one of the worst men
alive. His English is, anyhow, most vigorous and
vivid and picturesque, and I finally wrote and
asked him to come and call on me. I wanted to
see what sort of crabbed, bitter, disappointed old
man I had to deal with. At first he demurred ;
said that, "true to type," I would have him
assaulted by my hired ruffians. But at last he
agreed. He came this afternoon. Instead of a
wild-eyed bomb-thrower, there came into my
room a charming Irish youth with curly reddish
hair, a winning smile and a shy manner. His
name is St. John Ervine; he comes from Ulster,
and he has literary aspirations. He was practis-
ing on me.

Monday, June 10, 1911.

Coronation Day on Thursday of this week and
Honours List sent out to newspapers this even-
ing. This always gives me opportunity of being
first to send messages of congratulation to any

231

R.D.B.'s DIARY

friends who happen to be in the list. They do
not understand how it is that they receive my
telegram simultaneously with the announcement
in the morning papers ; ignorant of the fact that I
have twelve hours' start of the public. So to-night
I had occasion to send a message to young Max
Aitken, who came over here from Canada last
autumn, won a sensational parliamentary victory
at Ashton-under-Lyne within a few months of his
arrival, and now becomes a knight, all in record
time. He shows a natural aptitude for politics
and newspapers, and insists that he and I are
going to do big things together.

I remember meeting him for the first time last
September, at a luncheon given by Edward
Goulding and several others to Arthur Balfour
and Bonar Law. He told me then that he pro-
posed winning a difficult seat, and I did not
believe he would do it.*

Thursday, June 22, 1911.

This was Coronation Day. I reached the
Abbey at seven o'clock this morning and found
my place high up in the Triforium, from which
there was a splendid view, I sat entranced
throughout the morning until two o'clock. It
was the most wonderful sight of my life. Pageant
after pageant, picture after picture unrolling

* He not only won a difficult seat but became a baronet,
a cabinet minister and Lord Beaverbrook in a few years.

232

JUNE, 1911

before our eyes. I do not think it is possible to
put one's emotions into words. The vast area
covered with gorgeous costumes, colours, flowers,
blazoned on all sides, procession on procession all
culminating in the wonderful coronation scenes.
I think the thing which impressed me most was
when the young Prince of Wales appeared before
his royal father to do obeisance as those before
him had done. The young prince stepped for-
ward and bowed low before his father. Sweeping
his robes of the Garter to each side as he advanced
up the steps of the throne, he knelt down and
said:

" I, Edward Prince of Wales, do become your
liege man of life and limb and of earthly
worship ; and faith and truth I will bear unto
you, to live and die against all manner of folks.
So help me God."

The boy touched the royal crown with his fore-
finger and then kissed the King on the left cheek.
Custom prescribes this. But as he got up the
parent reached out his hand and drew his son to
him and kissed him ; and the boy, overcome for
the moment, kissed the King's hand and hurried
away. Just a simple English boy.

In the evening I went to the Native Exhibition
at the White City, but there was such a crowd it
was almost impossible to move, so I came away.

233

RJ}.B.'s DIARY

Friday, March 29, 1912.

A letter from Rudyard Kipling about the
future, in which he says : " This summer, if I live,
sees me clear of coal, and five years will see one-
third of England equally clear. In ten years the
miners will work 'with but after' jewellers and
engravers." From which I take it that the
Electric Age will be all prevailing in 1922.

Winston Churchill rang me up to explain his
policy of holding up the Budget by 6,500,000,
as he knows that Germany proposes to expand
her fleet, and that we must be ready to meet that
expansion. It is curious how all these people are
harping on the same subject.

Came up in the same train as the Countess of
Warwick, who was travelling third class! The
world is indeed changing.

Tuesday, May 7, 1912.

Lunching to-day with three or four people, in-
cluding Sir Edward Carson [Lord Carson], and,
talking about Asquith's proposal to make 100
Liberal peers if Home Rule Bill is defeated.
Carson said he had been dining with an August
Personage, who said : " I think, Sir Edward, it is
too bad that certain members of the House of
Commons should show so much animosity to-
wards individuals. There, for instance, some one
said rude things to the great and good man,

Mr. ."

234

MAY, JULY, igi2

" Well," said Carson in reply, " your great and

good Mr. is a downright scamp and a vicious

and dirty liar." Carson also said how he had
encountered the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Alver-
stone, who said to him in connection with the
Die-Hard business : " Carson, I'm ashamed of
you."

" ' Well, chief/ Oi said to him, ' it's manny a
toime OiVe been ashamed of you, too !' " Carson
tells me he is sacrificing 20,000 a year at the
Bar to look after the Ulster campaign.

Tuesday, July 9, 1912.

Wonderful Naval Review at Spithead to-day.
Over 300 ships in the fleet. I went in the
Admiralty yacht Enchantress as guest of Winston
Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty. Many
people of note on board, including the Prime
Minister and Mrs. Asquith, Admirals Beatty and
Troubridge, General Sir John French, and Sir
Ernest Cassel. When the fleet passed out,
Winston, on the bridge, took the salute, which
some of the naval folk on board said he should
not have done.

Came home in the evening in a special train
with General Sir John French, who was quite
garrulous, and soon got on his pet aversion,
Kitchener. French suffers from some slight,
imaginary or otherwise, suffered at Lord K/s
hands in the Boer War. He told me how once,

235

R.D.B:* DIARY

when public opinion in South Africa seemed to
be against him, Lord K. had come to him
and went and " carried on " like a young school-
girl, great big chap that he was. French said
further :

" Lord Roberts is a kindly gentleman, but he
did no good in South Africa. I had the Boers in
the hollow of my hand on two occasions, and each
time * Bobs ' stopped me and let them slip away.
I could have ended the war long before."

French ambled on like this all the way to
London, and if a stranger had heard him, not
knowing him to be a gallant, chivalrous and
brilliant leader, he would have been put down as
a village gossip.

Saturday, July 27, 1912.

A great Unionist demonstration at Blenheim,
the Duke of Maryborough's seat in Oxfordshire.
About 15,000 people gathered in the open before
the great palace to hear Bonar Law, the new
leader, and F. E. Smith. I am remaining in the
house party, which includes the Duke and
Duchess of Norfolk, Viscount Churchill, Lord
Balcarres, Harry Lawson [Viscount Burnham],
Mr. and Mrs. F. E. Smith, Edward Goulding
[Lord Wargrave], Bonar Law, Carson, James
Campbell [Lord Glenavy], Lady Sarah Wilson,
Lord and Lady Midleton. Sitting in the hall
after the speeches Bonar said to " F. E.," with a

236

JULY, SEPTEMBER, 1912

twinkle in his eye : " I've got some bad news for
you, *F. E.' I'm getting to be quite fond of
leadership."

F. E. smilingly retorted: " That's all right. I
can afford to wait."

Monday, September 16, 1912.

When I came down from Cumberland recently
on the Great North Road I appeared to encounter
an enormous number of cheap foreign cars, so I
determined to see if we could not establish the
popularity of British-made cars over the machines
produced by foreign countries. I gave a luncheon
at the Ritz Hotel to representatives of seventeen
British automobile manufacturing companies,
with Lord Montague in the chair. Among others
present were Mr. S. F. Edge, Mr. Charles Jarrott,
Mr. W. M. Letts, Sir Charles Friswell, Mr. J.
Thorneycroft, Mr. Sidney Straker, Mr. F.
Lanchester, Mr. Holt Thomas, and Mr. Thornton
Rutter. There were many speeches, and the result
of this gathering was the determination to form a
5,000,000 company in the United States this
would be called a " trust " to fight the foreign
automobile invasion. It is proposed to manufac-
ture a machine that will be nearly as cheap and
quite as good as some said better than the
American product.

A letter was read from the Duke of West-
minster, in which he said that the invasion of the

237

R.D.B.'s DIARY

American cars " threaten to deprive thousands of
English workers of employment, and the way out
is to start a vigorous campaign throughout the
country to advance the cause of British Imperial
preference." *

Tuesday, February 25, 1913.

Someone, somewhere, has started a story about
mysterious airships which fly over the country at
night. No one has yet seen them, but people at
various points along the East and South coasts
profess to have heard them. The Army authori-
ties put no credence in them, but in a chat I had
to-day with Colonel Marker, Coldstream Guards,
he said it would not be surprising if the Germans
were making secret night passages with the secret
airships. They have been carrying out staff rides
on the East coast for years without hindrance.
Why not air rides ? On the other hand, one could
see as well as hear them, and no one has yet seen
them.

Sunday, April 13, 1913.

Supper at H. G. Wells's in Easton Park. H. G.
gave a most interesting dissertation on politics.
His belief is that the Liberal Party is more dead

* I gave them the best champagne, which probably
accounts for the 5,060,000 company that never came into
being.

238

APRIL, SEPTEMBER, i 9 i 3

than the Tory Party, and that both are dead
beyond recall.

Thursday, April 24, 1913.

Lunching to-day at the club, Sir J. Henniker
Heaton, the postal reformer, said : " Within three
years there will leave daily from the G.P.O. air-
ships for Bombay, Cairo, Paris, Berlin and so on."
He prefers penny postage to a Channel tunnel ;
more useful.

Wednesday, September 3, 1913.

The Kabaka (King of Buganda), a pleasant
white-robed young black potentate from Africa,
came to the Daily Express offices at eleven o'clock
this evening with four of his chiefs and a British
officer in attendance. I showed them round, and
was as much interested in their exhibitions of
surprise as they were at what they saw. One of
the chiefs described the office as " a storehouse of
knowledge." I think he must have been primed
to say that, for whenever he came within whisper-
ing distance of me he said : " Storehouse of Know-
ledge." Otherwise he spoke no English. The
Kabaka is seventeen years old and a Christian.

At lunch to-day with Bertrand Stewart, a
yeomanry officer who had just been released by
the Germans after two years of really brutal im-
prisonment on the charge of espionage. They had

239

R.D.B.'s DIARY

him in solitary confinement for weeks, and his
imprisonment was due wholly to political reasons.
The Government here were supine. Never made
the slightest attempt to have him released for fear
of offending the dear All Highest. [Captain
Stewart, on General Allenby's staff, was killed
shortly after the outbreak of the Great War.]

1914.

The year 1914 began with evil portents. The
situation in Ireland had reached its climax, and
the fear of civil war dominated all conversation.
Sir Edward Carson stood out as the most formid-
able person in the Empire. One-half of the people
looked upon him as a sinister figure; the other
worshipped him. In the North of Ireland crowds
followed him muttering prayers for his preserva-
tion; women kissed his hand and held children up
for him to touch them against illness. The Great
War to break out this year was only spoken of as
a possibility of the dim future and then only by
the so-called "Scaremongers" who sought pre-
paredness, the Diarist, among them. Society was
having a good time. Here is an extract under date
of Saturday, March 14:

Sir Edward Carson came down to Dunmow
to stay with me for the week-end. We stopped
for a few minutes in the High Street. Instantly
240

ipi4. MARCH, 1914

the car was surrounded. " God bless you, sir,"
" God give you strength," and so on from all
sides. Carson says that Asquith would like to
get out of his difficulties if he could, but circum-
stances are against him.

They have got the names of twenty-eight
leaders to be arrested at a favourable moment.
That would mean instant war. " The fact is,"
he says, " I am so much concerned about the
pressure which is being put on us by the
Government that I am seriously thinking of
calling out our Ulster Army."

Friday y March 20, 1914.

Carson walked out of the House of Commons
yesterday " to go to my people " in Ulster. Mean-
while there are rumours that troops have been
ordered to Ulster from the South of Ireland, and
that a number of officers have resigned since they
refuse to take part in a civil war. Late to-night
we learn that the entire Third Cavalry Brigade at
the Curragh, commanded by Major-General
Hubert Gough, has refused to move. The officers
were given their choice of going or being dis-
missed, and they chose the latter. This dishes
Winston.

Sunday, March 22, 1914.

Came up to town. Things most exciting.
241

R.D.B.'s DIARY

General Henry Wilson, Director of Military
Operations, told me the entire Army Council were
threatening to resign if pressure was not taken off
Gough and he and his officers restored. I went to
the War Office. The place was seething with
excitement. Saw General French, who resigns
and does not resign. He does not know what to
do. " Jack " Seeley, the War Minister, will be-
come the scapegoat. Opposition leaders, Bonar
Law, Lansdowne, Devonshire, Salisbury, have
been in consultation all the morning at Lans-
downe House.

Monday, March 23, 1914.

Asquith tells The Times that it was not meant
seriously and so on. Arthur Paget, C.-in-C.
Ireland, is now becoming the Government's
scapegoat, but his brother Almeric [Lord Queen-
borough] tells me the general will hit back if
they try to implicate him. Meanwhile Seely
announces in the House that Gough and his
officers have been ordered to resume.

" Misunderstandings, etc." I met Colonel
John Gough, Hubert's twin brother, who in-
formed me that they had got a written under-
taking from Jack Seely and General Ewart that
troops would not be used against Ulster. Lloyd
George is furious. General French and General
Ewart keep on resigning, though all the Cabinet
Ministers deny it in turn. All topsy-turvy. But

242

MARCH, APRIL, 1914

to-night Seely has actually gone and French has
definitely resigned again. Carson over in Ireland
drilling his troops with wooden guns.

By April the Ulster Army was an effective force
and was regularly receiving arms through the
process of gun running. On Saturday, April n,
there is an entry.

Arrived in Belfast this morning and watched
a regiment of volunteers under Colonel E. L. E.
Malone, a regular officer, drill in the grounds of
Belfast Castle. They were splendid material.
Went on to Lady Masserene's house party at
Antrim Castle. Large party assembled for
lunch from Mount Stewart, Lord and Lady
Midleton, Mr. Wilfrid Ashley, M.P., Mr.
Edmund Gosse, the Bishop of Down, Colonel
Racket Pain, Colonel Sharman - Crawford,
the Duchess of Montrose, Sir R. Hermon-
Hodge [Lord Wyfold], Captain Craig [Lord
Craigavon], Ronald McNeill [Lord Cushendun],
Mr. and Mrs. H. A. Gwynne. All assembled to
witness a presentation of colours to the South
Antrim regiment, of which Arthur Pakenham is
colonel and Wilfrid Ashley adjutant.

Tuesday, April 14, 1914.

At Clandeboye, Lord Dufferin's place, to
attend a review of half a dozen Ulster regiments.
Very fine military display. It now seems certain
that these people mean to fight.

243

R.D.B.'s DIARY

On Saturday, April 25, the country was startled
by the report of a wholesale gun running exploit
which took place in Ulster. The whole volunteer
force took part. They " ran in " 30,000 rifles and
over 3,000,000 rounds. Police and military help-
less. That finally established the Ulster force as
a strong card in future negotiations, for it was
rifles and guns that were lacking up to now. " We
can now hope for decent peace terms" says the
Diary, " and so avoid the dread civil war which
has been hanging over the two countries."

The outcome was a Home Rule conference
between both sides. It took place at Bucking-
ham Palace, and went on for weeks. In June the
bomb that killed the Austrian heir to the throne
and his wife at Sarajevo was the first act of the
Great War. We in England knew it not, and
cared not. Ulster was more important. On
Sunday, June 28, there is a note in the Diary:

H. G. Wells came over to tea. While we were
talking news came that Austria's Crown Prince
and his wife have been assassinated by a Servian.
That will mean war. Wells says it will mean
more than that. It will set the world alight. I
don't see why the world should fight over the act
of a lunatic.

Ulster still uppermost. Many lunches and
dinners. Covenanters 9 Clubs, Women's Com-
mittees, Collections, and fervent oratory. General

244

APRIL, JULY, 1914

gaiety as well, and women beginning to go to
prize fights such as that between Bombardier
Wells and Colin Bell and Carpentier and " Gun-
boat " Smith. On Thursday, July 16, the Diary
states:

Sat with Lord Rosebery, his son, Neil Primrose
and Max Aitken. Lord Rosebery not much im-
pressed with the unskilfulness of "Gunboat,"
who was disqualified for striking Carpentier while
he was half-way on the floor.

Friday, July 24, 1914.

Ulster situation terribly gloomy. Conference
likely to be ineffective, and we are getting closer
to civil war. Dinner to-night at Mrs. Rupert
Beckett's, where all present seemed to reflect the
situation in their talk. Continental affairs not
discussed, although Austria will probably declare
war on Servia to-morrow. At dinner there were
Bonar Law, Carson with Miss Frewen, whom he
is to marry, F. E. Smith and Lady Smith, Lord
and Lady Londonderry, Ronald McNeill, Mr.
and Mrs. Rochfort Maguire, Mrs. Ralph Sneyd,
and the Duchess of Westminster. Civil war in-
evitable, they all say. " A fortnight from now,"
says Maguire, " and we'll all be in the middle of
it unless a miracle intervenes."

Sunday, July 26, 1914.

Collision in Dublin between Scottish Borderers

RJ).B.'s DIARY

and a mob over gun-running. Four killed, seventy
wounded. This puts the lid on !

On the Continent things were seething. On
Tuesday, July 28, panics everywhere. Austria,
France, Germany, and Russia getting ready.
Belgrade evacuated. In England the Home Rule
Amending Bill was put down for passage on the
following Thursday. Newspaper circulations
were rising, but advertising going to bits.

Wednesday, July 29, 1914..

Mr. Selfridge came down to see me at night to
hear the latest news. He did not think the
Germans would care to go to war. " They can't
stand it financially," he said ; " they wouldn't last
till Christmas." I retorted that, nevertheless, we
were beginning to take notice, and had got so far
that we are not printing the movements of the
Army and Navy units.

Thursday, July 30, 1914.

Belgrade on fire. Tension. Many failures.
Asquith announces a truce on Home Rule owing
to the situation. " Britain's united front and so
on." Liberal clamour to keep clear. We are
urging the Government not to let France down.

246

JULY .AUGUST \ 1914

Friday, July 31, 1914.

T. P. O'Connor asked me in the morning to see
Carson and get him to offer " a golden bridge "
on which he and Redmond could meet. I went
to Carson in Eaton Place at 1 1.30. He was in bed
with a headache. " The only golden bridge I'll
offer," he said, " is give me a clean cut of Ulster."

Drew my salary in gold for this month and
then changed it again to paper. Will not do to
hoard gold now.

Saturday, August i, 1914.

Went down home to Easton with our Daily
Express cricket eleven to play Easton Lodge. We
were beaten. After match we learned that
Germany had declared war on Russia and had
marched into Luxemburg, thus violating her
treaty engagements. If this country does not
stand up for Right and Honour she will be for
ever damned.

Sunday, August 2, 1914.

Had a visit this morning from Herr Kurt
Buetow, the German tutor to Mr. H. G. Wells's
two boys. [This is the famous German tutor in
Mr. Britling Sees It Through.'] He came to bid
us good-bye, since he has been called home to
Germany to take his place in the Army. He was

247

RJDJ.'s DIARY

very stiff and formal and polite, but evidently
sorry to leave England.

Came up to town early. In St. James's Park,
just below the German Embassy, I met Prince
Lichnowski, the German Ambassador, looking
terribly sad. " I am afraid we can do no more,"
he said. " I have just seen Sir Edward Grey, and
you are likely to take sides with the French."

Moratorium to be declared to-morrow. No
debt settlements. So there'll be no money panics.

Monday, August 3, 1914

Sir E. Grey leaves no doubt as to British
course. Declares in Commons that he will fight
if the French coast is harried. Mobilisation
decided on. Crowds in streets, and the Germans
are on the Belgian Frontier.

Tuesday, August 4, 1914.

Ultimatum sent to Germany to respect Belgian
neutrality. It expires at midnight. Declined ; so
there is nothing for it. At midnight Great Britain
declared war on Germany.

We are in it! How long?

THE END