ractive speakers. In his references to
Parliamentary life he mentions that GLADSTONE, when he proposed to
abolish the Income Tax, told him that he intended to meet the
deficiency partly by increase of the death duties. That was a
fundamental principle of the Budget Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL prepared
during his brief Chancellorship of the Exchequer. It was left to Sir
WILLIAM HARCOURT to realise the fascinating scheme, later to be
extended by Mr. LLOYD GEORGE. Another of Lord RANDOLPH'S personally
unfulfilled schemes was the introduction of one-pound notes. In a
letter dated 16th December, 1886, he confidentially communicated his
project to LUBBOCK. When his book reaches its second edition Mr.
HUTCHINSON will have an opportunity of correcting a misapprehension
set forth on page 48. He writes that, on June 21st, 1895, "all were
startled by an announcement that Mr. GLADSTONE had resigned and that
Parliament was to be dissolved." The surprise was not unnatural since
Lord ROSEBERY was Prime Minister at this memorable crisis.

* * * * *

I can see some good in most people, but none whatever in those
chairmen of meetings who, being put up to introduce distinguished
speakers, thoroughly well worth listening to, feel called upon to
delay matters by making lengthy speeches themselves. I propose to be
quite brief in announcing PROFESSOR STEPHEN LEACOCK on _Arcadian
Adventures with the Idle Rich_ (LANE). Conceive this arch-humourist
let loose, if so rough a term may be applied to so delicate a wit,
among the sordid and fleshly plutocracy of a progressive American
city; imagine his polished satire expending itself on such playful
themes as the running of fashionable churches on strictly commercial
lines, dogma and ritualism being so directed and adapted as to leave
the largest possible dividends on the Special Offertory Cumulative
Stock, and your appetite will be whetted for an intellectual feast of
the most delicious flavour. For myself, I found a certain quiet but
intense delight in the first five stories, episodes in the lives of
individual billionaires; but when I came to the last three, which
dealt with the class as a collective whole, then I became frankly
and noisily hilarious. I am not given to being tiresome in the
reading-room; it is another of the unforgivable offences; but I
defy any man of intelligence to read those chapters and retain even
a fair remnant of self-control.

*