sy over the Marconi Case. The next
lesson was about titles. Then came one about policemen, and finally
about company promoters and investments. How a promoter guesses there
is oil somewhere, how money is lent to dig for it ("But, Mamma! How
can money dig?"), how the Company promoter may find no oil, how if
they think he has cheated them the rich men who lent their money can
have him tried by twelve good men and true--(_Tommy:_ "How do they
know the men are good and true, Mamma?" _Mrs. M.:_ "They do this by
taking them in alphabetical order out of a list.").

Perhaps the combination of irony thinly veiling intensity of purpose,
with humour sometimes degenerating into wild fooling, damned them in
the eyes of many. But there was a more serious obstacle to the real
effectiveness they might otherwise have had. When it was unavoidable
to name the _New Witness_ its opponents referred to it as though to a
"rag." Why was this possible? Principally I think because of the
violence of its language. Most Parliamentary matters to which it made
reference were spoken of as instances of "foul" corruption or "dirty"
business. Transactions by Ministers were said to "stink," while the
Ministers themselves were described as carrying off or distributing
"swag" and "boodle." In Vol. II of the _Eye Witness_, for instance, we
find the "game of boodle," "dirty trick," "Keep your eye on the
Railway Bill: you are going to be fleeced," and "stunt" and "ramp"
_passim_. Mr. Lloyd George and Sir Rufus Isaacs are always called
"George" and "Isaacs." The General of the Salvation Army is
invariably "Old Booth," while in the headlines the word "Scandal"
constantly recurs. Even admirers were at times like Fox's followers
who

Groaned "What a passion he was in tonight!
Men in a passion must be in the wrong
And heavens how dangerous when they're built so strong."
Thus the great Whig amid immense applause
Scared off his clients and bawled down his cause,
Undid reform by lauding Revolution
Till cobblers cried "God save the Constitution."

CHAPTER XIX

Marconi

IN HIS _Autobiography_ Gilbert Chesterton has set down his belief
that the Marconi Scandal will be seen by historians as a landmark in
English history. To him personally the revelations produced by it
were a great shock and gave the death-blow to all that still lingered
of his belief in the Liberal Party. For the rest of his life it may
almost be called an obsession