forth from his seclusion and from his usual indifference to political movements of any kind, in order to send a letter to the promoters of the meeting in St. James's Hall to declare his conviction that the expulsion of the Turks from Europe, though a somewhat drastic measure, was yet the only hopeful remedy for the oppression and the miseries inflicted by the Ottoman Government on its subject populations in the southeast of Europe. As I listened to the speeches at that meeting, my memory carried me back to distant days when, as a very young man, I had heard John Henry Newman deliver his famous lectures on the Eastern Question. That was just before the outbreak of the Crimean War, and what Newman told us, and told us vainly, would be the only outcome of the war is accepted now as gospel truth by every party and by every public man in England. I remember one thrilling sentence in which Newman declared that the Turk had just as much right to his dominion in Europe as the pirate has to the sea which he sails over and ravages.

Mr. Gladstone issued his famous pamphlet called " Bulgarian Hor-> rors and the Question of the East." In the pamphlet he declared that the only way to secure any lasting good for the Christian population of Turkey

longed massacres of Christians in Armenia. In 1876, however, Mr. Gladstone's movement was completely successful. It ended-I am hurrying over familiar historical details-in the setting up of Bulgaria as a practically independent province under the nominal suzerainty of the Sultan. It is now a well-ordered and a prosperous State. Many events conspired to bring about its practical independence, but I know of no influence which had a greater power that way than the position taken up by Mr. Gladstone as the leader of the agitation in England.

Mr. Disraeli soon after passed through to the House of Lords. Mr. Gladstone was compelled by the force of events to resume his position as leader of the Liberal party.

He was compelled, indeed, to do more than that. The Conservative Government was fast breaking down. Mr. Gladstone again and again challenged the Tories,, who had had six years of office, to appeal to the country by dissolution and a general election, and thus make it certain whether the constituencies were or were not in favor of their policy. The Tories knew that a general election must come on within another twelve months in any case. So they took heart of grace, and announced a dissolution of Parliament. The result of the general election was that the Conservatives were for the time utterly overthrown. They were routed, horse, foot, and artillery. It was a complete catastrophe. When the votes at the elections were counted up, it was found that the Tory party was nowhere. The Liberals came back with a majority of more than 120. No Liberal statesmen up to that time had seen themselves backed up by so splendid a following. There was a moment of official delay, of unavoidable hesitation, of formal anxiety and suspense. For whom was the Queen to send? On whom was she to impose the task and the responsibility of forming a new administration?

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was to turn the Turkish officials out, "bag and baggage." The words were seized upon by some of Mr. Gladstone's political opponents. These persons professed or pretended to believe that Mr. Gladstone was calling out for the. actual physical expulsion of all the Turks, men, women, and children, out of Europe, and the admission of Russians in their stead. What Mr. Gladstone meant was, of course, obvious and clear. He meant that the Turkish Government as a government should cease to reign in Europe. It will come to that in the end. It will have to come to that before very long. If Mr. Gladstone had been to the front of the battle in 1895 and 1896, as he was in 1876, civilization probably would not have been horrified and disgraced by the pro

Mr. Gladstone was merely, in the official sense, an ordinary Liberal Member of the House of Commons. Lord Hartington was

depths of the lake below, its blanched tips standing above the moss, mute monuments to its own burial-place.

Around this lake stretched miles of yellow marsh-grass, a home for all the creeping things that live in the half-land, neither of earth nor of water, but with divided natures. The strong city coveted this waste and mysterious place. In council it determined to send forth three of its wisest men, reputed to be each in his own line the greatest of all his fellows. They were to meet together and to devise a way to subjugate and make subservient to man's use this burial-place of trees, this haunt of the creatures of the half-land. This committee of three wise men met at the edge of the lake by agreement. One was a Business Man, one was a Scientific Man, and one was a Poet. After greeting each other, each went on his way alone to explore the region. A secretary waited at the lake to write out the report.

The Business Man came back first. The Man of Science came next. They waited long for the Poet to return; at last it was discovered that he had not left the spot, but that a few paces from them he had lain all day on a mat of marsh-grass watching the clouds.

The Business Man spoke first; he held his watch in his hand and said: "Gentlemen, I have a business engagement of importance in just forty-five minutes; my horses are waiting to carry me back to the city. I can meet my engagement if our reports are brief. I beg to be allowed, however, to present my report first in case I am not able to remain till the end." As there was no reply to this, he continued: "I came out here at seven, sharp. I have been over every acre of land that is accessible to the foot of man. My suggestions are, in brief, as follows: First, that the marsh be drained-an obvious fact that cannot have escaped your notice. [The Business Man was, fortunately, the President of the International Drainage Co., Limited.] Secondly, that a railroad, electric preferred, be built connecting by a short cut the Texan and New Zealand R. R. with the Purgatory and Underland R. R. [The Business Man was also General Manager of these two lines, and knew of what he spoke.] Thirdly, that the water once drained from this lake will leave the trees that are now submerged free to be used as ties in building these roads; by bringing here a portable sawmill the work can be expeditiously and cheaply done. [No man

knew more about portable sawmills than the Business Man, as he was at the head of a Combine of all portable sawmills, although it was not called a Combine.]

Gentlemen, this is, in brief, an outline of my scheme, and I will offer, as a guarantee of my good faith, either to take the carrying out of the whole scheme on my shoulders, the profit or loss to be mine, or I will be contractor for the city. This, gentlemen, is my report in brief." The Secretary wrote all this down in his note-book.

The Scientist rose and said: "I regret more than I can say to be obliged to acknowledge that, though the gentleman who has just been speaking is a fellow-countryman, even a townsman of mine, still, strange as it may seem, unaccountable even, yet I have not been able to understand his report. I have not even understood his language. I doubt not he has spoken ably and to the point, and it is my misfortune not to have been able to follow him. Therefore, I beg of you to receive my report and judge it entirely on its own merits, and not at all as being intentionally in opposition to anything he may have said.

"I have a deep interest in this most singular manifestation of nature as expressed in the land lying before us. I find here an unexampled opportunity for our city to advance science at one stroke beyond the computation of man, beyond what might, in the ordinary course of events, take a century to accomplish. And all this can be done at the slight cost of two or three millions of dollars, which is as a mere bagatelle in comparison to the advancement of scientific knowledge.

"Let us build here a bacteriological hothouse; let us utilize this natural and unparalleled breeding-place for microbes, malarial and other varieties. Let us send here as subjects for experiment all the ill-born and evil-inheriting portion of the city's population, and carefully note the development and progress in their systems of the malarial and other bacteria, under strict scientific regulations. We shall thus at one blow weaken or kill off all of our undesirable population. The city will grow stronger by elimination, while we at the same time get data for the future well-being of the race. Gentlemen, as a guarantee of my disinterestedness, I myself will live here and personally conduct the bacteriological department, free of expense to the city and at my own personal risk of infection, for the sake of Science."