CHAPTER XXXV 



THE AYRTON EPISODE 



THE years from 1870 to 1872 were ravaged and embittered 

 by a personal conflict with Mr. Ayrton, the First Commis- 

 sioner of Works in Mr. Gladstone's Government. Gossip 

 suggested that he was taken into the Ministry to economise 

 the time that would have been wasted had he been left free 

 to heckle the Government. For he was gifted with a blistering 

 tongue and a thick skin, with which he exploited in the Radical 

 interest a breezy sansculottism akin to that which sent Lavoisier 

 to the block, with the words ' the republic has no need of men 

 of science,' but extending the phrase to cover a wider range 

 of civilised amenities. Lord Suffield tells an amusing story 

 of him. In 1873 he was present at a grand ball given 

 at Stafford House in honour of the Shah of Persia, who 

 was visiting London. The Shah desired to meet Mr. Ayrton, 

 and a messenger was dispatched in search of him. He was 

 found in the supper room, and being invited to come forth- 

 with and be presented to the Shah, he bluntly responded, 

 from a mouth full of chicken, ' I'll see the old nigger in 

 Jericho first ! ' 



Kew, like the rest of the Royal Parks, fell under the 

 administration of the First Commissioner. In his re-election 

 speech at the Tower Hamlets in the winter of 1869 he enlarged 

 on the popular aims of his rule, with a warning to ' architects, 

 sculptors, and gardeners ' that they would be kept in their 

 places. 



In dealing with an official superior who had thus dotted 



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