150 LIFE OF TEGETMEIER 



ghost-stories and Psychical Research. But again, 

 it is unnecessary ; litera scripta manet, and any 

 interested persons, or those curious on the point, 

 are referred to the bound volumes of that paper. 

 Suffice it to say that Tegetmeier's fertility of 

 resource in finding or adapting his subjects was 

 amazing, and the length of time he wrote the 

 leader for the Queen was one of the few subjects 

 on which he was really vain, and which, in his 

 later years, he allowed himself the old man's 

 privilege somewhat to exaggerate. The period 

 actually covered could not have been more than 

 twenty years. According to his own statement 

 that he had written over a thousand consecutive 

 leaders, the time occupied would be only some 

 twenty years, and as he gave up writing them in 

 August, 1902, this would place the date of his 

 beginning them about 1882. Towards the end 

 of his life and just after his death many news- 

 papers printed silly stories about him and his 

 work on the Queen, one in particular, that ought 

 to have known better, going so far as to say that 

 he wrote the leaders for it from its commence- 

 ment. The Queen was established in 1861, and 

 Tegetmeier did not become its leader-writer for 

 twenty years after that date. 



That he was particularly well fitted for the 

 task of writing the weekly article for the Queen 

 cannot be denied, for his qualifying knowledge 

 was extensive and peculiar. His early training 



