CHAPTER XXVIII 



The First Eclipse Stakes Scenes from the Irish Rebellion 

 Percy Reeve The Taming of the Shrew The Election our 

 Zenith Great Days Col. McMurdo The Delagoa Bay 

 Railway- Resignation of Lord Randolph Spiritualism and 

 Charles Peace The Middlesex Magistrates libelled A 

 Crown Prosecution I visit America The Appalachian Mine 

 Racing in the States Hanover James R. Keene Leonard 

 Jerome A Thirsty Day Return to England 



ON 24th July 1886 we published a big cartoon 

 representing on the top half Lord Salisbury 

 eclipsing Gladstone in the skies, and Minting 

 beating St Gatien and Bendigo for the First Eclipse Stakes. 

 This is a fairly good object lesson in the folly of pro- 

 phesying before you know, but as the paper came out on a 

 Thursday and the race was not run until Friday it did 

 not so much matter. Minting sprung a curb before the 

 day and was unable to start or he would no doubt have 

 verified Tom Merry's cartoon. 



In this year we had made a good fight, politically, by 

 digging up Musgrave's History of the Irish Rebellion 

 of 1798 and reproducing Cruikshank's blood-curdling 

 delineations of the horrible scenes. These, with half-a- 

 page of the letterpress to each, made a startling series 

 during eight weeks, and then were published in a collected 

 form, with portraits of Mr Gladstone and Mr Parnell on 

 the front page " William Ewart Gladstone and Charles 

 Stewart Parnell the Separatist leaders of 1886. What 

 the Irish Loyalists have to expect if these leaders 

 triumph." 



Over 500,000 of this collected series were sold in the 

 streets of London at a penny each. The rush of itinerant 

 vendors into the office I shall never forget. They seemed 



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