CHAPTER XII 



POLITICAL LIFE (continued) 



Mr. Gladstone Committee on the Metrical System of Weights and 

 Measures Friendships in the House Reform of Parliamentary 

 Elections Opening of Museums on Sunday Committee on Science 

 Collections, South Kensington Grants to University Colleges 

 Legislation on the Use of Steam in Weaving Sheds Adviser to the 

 Metropolitan Board of Works Sewage Pollution of Rivers 1851 

 Science Scholarships Address from Constituents on Retirement. 



IT is a truism to say that Mr. Gladstone, whose 

 portrait from a photograph by Mr. Rupert Potter 

 faces this chapter, was the life and soul of the House 

 of Commons in my time ; and more able pens than 

 mine have striven, and striven successfully, to place 

 before the world the extraordinary character and 

 wonderful powers of that great man. One of his 

 most remarkable characteristics was his personal in- 

 fluence over men at variance with him on many 

 fundamental points. I have often wondered, and 

 still wonder, how it was that men differing so widely 

 from him in habit of mind should have followed his 

 political lead so completely. For example, Gladstone's 

 ecclesiasticism was altogether foreign to my ideas. 

 The secret of his influence, and of the almost magical 

 fascination of his personality, lay, I venture to think, 

 not merely in his great oratorical and persuasive powers, 

 nor even in his grand courage, but rather in his high 

 ideals and his unselfish devotion to the cause of free- 

 dom all the world over. 



