CHAPTER IV. 



Bulgarian Atrocities in Buckinghamshire — Lord Beaconsfield's 

 Speech in the Corn Exchange at Aylesbury and Rothschild's 

 Opinion of it — Disraeli and the Cattle Defence Association — 

 Disraeli and Protection — ^At Hughenden : its Cedars, its Purchase 

 — Mrs. Disraeli's Frugality — The Romantic Story of Miss 

 Williams' Legacy — Disraeli as Chancellor of the Exchequer — 

 His Manchester Speech — His Opinion of the Disfranchising 

 Act of 1832 — His Sympathy for the Agricultural Labouring 

 Class : their Earnings, their Right of Combination— On Pub- 

 licans and Exhausted Volcanoes — His Death and Funeral. 



At the annual meeting of the Royal and Central Buck- 

 ingham Agricultural Society in 1880, Mr. Disraeli had 

 promised, as was generally his custom, to attend. But 

 he had lately been created Earl of Beaconsfield after bis 

 successful completion of the Berlin Treaty, and his 

 elevation to the peerage had created a vacancy in the 

 representation of the County of Bucks. At this time Mr. 

 Gladstone and others had been stumping the country, 

 haranguing the masses on the so-called '' Bulgarian 

 Atrocities " ; the minds of the people v/ere much in- 

 flamed, and doubts were entertained if the scat, thus 

 vacated, could be held by the Conservative party, and 

 the bye-election was looked forward to by both sides as 

 a test election of the opinions of the people on this great 

 question. The candidates for the vacant seat were the 



