s not overstate
the extent to which betting demoralizes not only the wealthier, but all
classes. There is a great pauper school in Sutton, where from 1,600 to
1,800 children are reared and educated. On Derby Day the children go to
the side of the railroad, and catch the coppers and silver coins thrown
to them by the passengers, and these are gathered together to give the
children their yearly treat. But this association in the children's
minds of their annual pleasure with Derby Day must, I often think, have
a demoralizing tendency.

While in London I slipped in trying to avoid being run down by an
omnibus and dislocated my right shoulder. I was fortunate in being the
guest of Mr. and Mrs. Petherick at the time. I can never be
sufficiently grateful to them for their care of and kindness to me.
Only last year I went to Melbourne to meet them both again. It was the
occasion of the presentation to the Federal Government of the Petherick
Library, and I went over to sign and to witness the splendid deed of
gift.

I have left almost to the last of the account of my English visit all
mention of the Baconians I met and from whom I gained valuable
information in corroboration of the Baconian authorship. In some
circles I found that, to suggest that Shakspeare did not write the
plays and poems was equal to throwing a bombshell among them. As a
Baconian I received an invitation to a picnic at the beautiful country
house of Mr. Edwin Lawrence, with whom I had a pleasant talk. The house
was built on a part of a royal forest, in which firs and pines were
planted at the time of the great Napoleonic wars when timber could not
be got from the Baltic and England had to trust to her own hearts of
oak and her own growth of pine for masts and planks. Mr. Lawrence had
written pamphlets and essays on the Baconian theory, and I found my
knowledge of the subject expanding and growing under his intelligent
talk. His wife's father (J. Benjamin Smith) had taught Cobden the
ethics of free trade. It was through the kind liberality of Miss
Florence Davenport Hill that a pamphlet, recording the speeches and
results of the voting at River House, Chelsea, was printed and
circulated. When I visited Miss Hill and her sister and found them as
eager for social and political reform as they had been 29 years
earlier, I had another proof of the eternal youth which large and high
interests keep within us in spite of advancing years. Miss Davenport
Hill had b