xi POLITICAL LIFE 271 



attention to the subject, and had delivered a lecture 

 at the Royal Institution on the manufacture of this 

 singular substance derived from coal-tar, which is 

 many hundred times as sweet as sugar. It is also 

 said to possess antiseptic properties useful for preserv- 

 ing light beer, to give "body" or palate-fulness to 

 that beverage, and as one of the Members jokingly 

 observed, " People who went to the public-house de- 

 siring to get drunk would be kept fraudulently sober." 

 It was argued that it was inexpedient to cripple 

 brewers by denying to them the use of ingredients 

 which upon the whole have a tendency to improve the 

 quality and palatableness of beer. An amendment was 

 therefore moved to limit the power of the Treasury 

 to interfere only in cases where the ingredients were 

 noxious or injurious. The avowed object of the power 

 which the Inland Revenue claimed was to prevent 

 the use of materials which tend to limit revenue. 

 Mr. Goschen said that the introduction of the twelve 

 tons of this saccharine, which would be needed for 

 all the brewers in the kingdom, would entail a loss 

 of a million sterling to the revenue, and so the 

 amendment was lost. 



In connection with saccharine I may tell the follow- 

 ing story about Tennyson. In the autumn of 1890, 

 which we spent at a charming house, Hollowdene, at 

 Frensham, near Farnham, my friend William Summers 

 was staying with us. He was then Member for 

 Huddersfield and Junior Whip for the Liberal party, 

 a man universally popular, and of great intelligence 

 and political insight. The news of his sudden death 

 in India from smallpox was a sad blow to all his 

 friends and a great loss to his party. When staying 

 with us, he asked me whether I should object to 

 driving him over to see Lord Tennyson at Blackdown. 



