XII 



POLITICAL LIFE 289 



poor beggar an extra shilling, it is a cruel night." 

 Mundella was indeed a true man, and it is a proof that 

 England is really a democracy when we hear that he left 

 school at ten years of age and worked his way up by 

 sheer force of character to the position of Minister 

 of Education. Nor need we wonder that when he 

 attained the distinction of Cabinet rank he exclaimed, 

 " At last ! " I felt his loss keenly, and my wife and I 

 were among the crowd of mourning friends who paid 

 their respects to his memory in St. Margaret's. 



Of three other valued friends, viz., Bernhard 

 Samuelson, John Slagg and William Woodall, who have 

 also joined the majority, I have already spoken as having 

 been my colleagues on the Technical Commission. 



Another interesting personality which it was my 

 good fortune to meet whilst a Member of Parliament 

 was Sir Isaac Holden, than whom no one of the self- 

 made men of the past had a history more notable or 

 an individuality more marked. He raised himself 

 entirely through his own exertions to the position of, 

 not only a millionaire, but the founder of a great 

 industry. He was a good mechanician, and by his 

 improvement in the machinery for wool-combing, 

 combined with extraordinary activity and business- 

 like habits, he succeeded in establishing an immense 

 business, not only in Yorkshire, but also in France. 

 As a proof of his untiring energy, I may mention that, 

 when no longer a young man, he used to start from 

 Bradford in the afternoon, reach London in time for 

 the night mail to Calais, and without previous notice 

 turn up at his mills at Roubaix at six o'clock in the 

 morning to look after things, returning the next night 

 to London and reaching his home in Keighley the 

 same afternoon. This he did regularly and not merely 

 occasionally. He was a small man but with a back as 



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